One Week
by justok
Summary: Patients come and go; a visiting scientist tries to make history. Bones ruminates, busy Christine learns some slang and fails the Bechdel Test in her head. And in the corner, Pavel sulks. Most of the known crew appear, a minor original character's death is described. No actual sex, but people think about it lots. An average week in sick bay, sometime before Khan.
1. Chapter 1

Patients come and go; a visiting scientist tries to make history. Bones ruminates, busy Christine learns some slang and fails the Bechdel Test in her head. And in the corner, Pavel sulks. Most of the crew appear, a minor character's death is described. No actual sex, but people think about it lots. An average week in sick bay, sometime before Khan.

This story is told from the point of view of the staff of the sick bay, usually McCoy or Chapel, but occasionally another nurse or a tech. You can tell from who's perspective by noticing how they refer to each other. Chapel thinks of herself as Christine, and the doctor as Leonard. He thinks of himself and everyone but Kirk by their last name except when his guard is down and then sometimes he uses a first name.

Monday

06:50  
Leonard McCoy tried to lean back in his seat. But all the chairs on the ship were weighted to prevent just that action. It creaked loudly but refused to budge. The noise made Geoffrey M'Benga, who was seated next to him, smile like he'd heard a good joke. Christine Chapel, seated in the next chair down frowned and stared more intently at the speaker. 'You are a faker Christine,' thought McCoy.

He was in the largest conference room on the Enterprise. So were most of his coworkers. They left a skeleton crew to cover the unit, and once a month they tried to have a division meeting. Normally they spent thirty minutes together and talked about organizational issues, policy changes, or staffing. Today they had spent most of the meeting listening to John Treos, the visiting scientist, discuss his project.

Treos had begun clamoring to be allowed to address the group for some time. McCoy had ignored him, figuring that Treos had talked so much since coming on board there could not possibly be that many crew members who hadn't heard his plans. But Chapel was the unit manager. And she set the agendas for their meetings. Treos had appealed to her, and she had allotted him eight minutes to familiarize the staff with his project.

McCoy cleared his throat and stared pointedly at the chrom. Treos didn't notice. He had been talking for nearly twenty minutes, and showed no signs of stopping. McCoy sighed. He considered getting up and walking out when the meeting was scheduled to end. He was the chief medical officer. No one would say anything. He suspected most the staff would be pleased. However, the nurses couldn't leave, and neither could the techs. Never in his life had Leonard McCoy wanted to be the kind of man that would leave his coworkers to endure what he could not. So, he settled back into his seat and thought, as he did at least once a day, that he did not belong here.

He had assumed he would join a practice in Atlanta, work hard, and eventually get a place out in the country by his folks. He'd thought he would spend weekends there with his wife and have a lot of kids. But things hadn't worked out the way he'd planned. When his daddy got sick he'd spent time on the farm that should have been spent at work, so the practice didn't pan out. Then there had been the divorce. There'd only been the one kid. The day he accepted he was at rock bottom he had walked into a Starfleet recruiting office and asked if they needed doctors. He had been right to think the service could give him the structure he had forgotten how to supply himself. He had hoped to end up practicing at one of the larger facilities on Earth, have a quiet life, start over. He had never considered being assigned to a starship, and he had certainly never anticipated becoming CMO.

But Nero had changed lots of people's plans when he unleashed his crazy on the universe, and CMO he was. There were some benefits, he worked with dedicated, talented people. He got to do some amazing surgeries repairing injuries he would never have seen in a private practice. On a star ship all the physicians, of all specialties, also provided primary care, so he got to use all his training. On Earth a surgeon wouldn't get that sort of freedom. And he was the boss, he had to admit he liked being the boss.

Still, there were many, many drawbacks. He had to live in space. He was surrounded by dedicated, talented people that annoyed him daily by failing to consider how easily things could go wrong. He saw horrific injuries he would never have been forced to deal with in private practice. And he was the boss, which meant he had to attend far too many meetings, and fill out far too much paperwork. But this month by far the worst part of his job was Starfleet foisting John Treos, efficiency and efficacy expert on him.

Treos was both a physician and a biomedical engineer. He had been waiting at the last starbase they had visited, orders in hand. Dr. McCoy was to welcome him to the Enterprise, give him access to the facilities there, and with courtesy and diligence, assist him in testing his research. He had developed a self-contained, portable hospital manned entirely by robots. The work had been largely paid for by Starfleet, and the brass was eager to have their investment evaluated.

Although not enthusiastic, McCoy had done what he could to be helpful. He had listened to Treos talk about his plans and then had tried to be polite when he explained that every patient on the Enterprise would be evaluated and cared for by a sentient being. He had offered to allow Treos's creations to take over some of the tasks on the unit that were already performed by robots. Treos had not been satisfied. He had expected to be provided with a large number of very sick beings and seemed surprised McCoy could not produce them on demand. He had also insisted his care provider units weren't robots. He had talked a great deal about why they weren't robots. McCoy had looked at the big metal things and stopped listening.

McCoy glanced at the chrom again. Twenty-seven minutes, and Treos was still talking. At this rate, he would easily outlast the half hour he had talked at the second meeting, the one with the senior staff he had forced McCoy to arrange. There Treos had explained that all his previous patients had been graduate students who were paid to complain of symptoms. Apparently he had thought he could go over McCoy's head. He had cheerfully asked the captain to locate a planet with some sort of military conflict, drop him and his robots off, and stay in orbit until he had gathered some data. Jim had laughed in his face. McCoy had thought the expression on Treos's face while the first officer explained the impossibility of dropping a gigantic inflatable hospital and some robots onto some warring pre-contact civilization had been almost worth sitting through the meeting.

McCoy chuckled at the memory. Chapel gave him a disapproving look. He sighed and reached for his PADD, thinking he might catch up on some reports. Chapel looked even angrier and shook her head, so he let the machine lie and focused back on Treos, who had moved from explaining his work to talking a little more about himself. "My greatest goal, my fondest hope, is to be able to test the efficacy of my portable self-contained medical unit," he said. "Imagine a universe where health care workers were never again exposed to disease."

"We do not generally find cross contamination to be much of a problem John, we have isolation procedures and areas," M'Benga said kindly. "They work very well. All our evaluations support their effectiveness."

'You encourage him when you talk to him,' thought McCoy.

"My program is radically different. My unit is entirely self-contained. My patient care units provide complete care, no supervision is necessary at all. It completely frees health care workers from the mundane and allows them the freedom to use their skills in more meaningful ways."

That was too much, McCoy decided it required a comment. "More meaningful than patient care? The members of this staff are health care providers, not clerks. They have invested years into mastering their skills. Why would they prefer to keep records?" asked McCoy

Chapel raised an eyebrow and looked at him sideways.

Treos glanced his direction but continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Consider please a universe where health care workers were not exposed to suffering, were free to use their intellects to combat disease without risking their own health, either mental or physical. That my fellow beings, is the future of medicine."

The engineer looked around the room and continued cheerfully, "In another scenario, and it is the one that primarily interests Starfleet, my units could be set up behind lines in a war zone and injured warriors could be cared for by the units while the front moved forward."

M'Benga smiled patronizingly at Treos. "I am thinking," he whispered to McCoy, "that he has never been in a war zone." McCoy snorted derisively.

Trina Shernan, one of the nurses, raised her hand. Treos nodded at her. She said uncertainly, "Doctor Treos, why do you keep asking us if we have any infectious patents?"

"Because he is weird," whispered one of the other nurses. 'That's Piers Langdon,' McCoy thought, 'good man.'

"My unit is of course designed to provide total care for any patient, but I think it could really shine while managing an outbreak of something contagious," said Treos. "Ideally, I would like to have several patients right out of the gate, but if the situation presented, I feel comfortable enough with my work that I would not be opposed to participating in an epidemic. A plague might be aiming a little high for my trial run, but some day, even a plague will be containable within my unit."

"I never heard another physician hoping to find some people suffering from anything. I mean, you're a doctor. Wouldn't you just rather no one got sick?" Shernan asked.

"Research doesn't happen in a vacuum." Dr. Treos replied, with a wide smile. "This is science. My goal is to maximize the positivity of the health care experience for both the workers and the users."

"Did he just say 'users'?" whispered M'Benga.

"I am assuming he means patients." Chapel replied.

"I hate this guy." said McCoy. 

10:43  
"This is the pharmacy." Christine explained to the latest crew members. They had picked up three new graduates during a recent stop at a planet called Ertruck. She looked at them and thought that the recruits seemed to be getting younger and younger. All these fresh faced young people ready to go out into the universe and help people. Truthfully, she found them all a little depressing, Christine preferred her coworkers seasoned, with a little firmer grasp of reality. However, so many experienced people had died. The Enterprise was still short staffed in every department, and nursing desperately needed more hands, so she steeled herself to the eager expressions and continued.

"It is organized a little differently than most pharmacies. Because of the variety of beings working on the ship we carry some unusual drugs. We organize everything alphabetically by chemical name. It's a little cumbersome, but it works. You enter the patient's name or ID number, cross check, enter the order, and the proper meds will be mixed and then dispensed here." She gestured to a small chamber. "Then it will light up." She paused, because she had forgotten to ask something important. "Are you all sighted?" The grads all nodded their heads.

That was convenient, it was not always the case. Many varieties of beings served in Starfleet, non-sighted beings often made excellent nurses, but the pharmacy set up did not accommodate their skill set very well. She continued, "and can you see color?" The youngsters nodded harder. "Good, the basin with the hypo normally glows green. If it glows red the computer thinks there is a potential problem, it could be an allergy or a species-specific intolerance. Take a quick look, but I am going to tell you, sometimes it isn't really obvious what the problem is, and lots of times the records are incomplete and the computer misses it. What I am saying is, don't assume there is no problem because the light is green, and don't refuse to take the drug because it is red. But make sure you mention it to the ordering physician. Usually they know what they are doing, just let them know the machine is concerned, they'll need to justify their decision in their notes."

She looked skeptically at the trainees. One young woman was making a note in her PADD. Christine wanted to tell her to stop wasting her time. She would never be able to consult it when the unit was overrun with injured crew members, the floor slick with multiple colors of blood, noisy with howls of pain and fear and Leonard shouting orders. 'Oh well,' she thought, 'some things just needed to be experienced.'

"Follow me and I'll show you how to get supplies when the automatic resupply is overwhelmed." Christine said, and led the tour down the hall.

"Chapel," called Leonard.

"Yes doctor," replied the head nurse.

The CMO stood in the door of his office and said, "I have a comm here from the public health department on Ertruck. We were there two weeks ago."

"Yes, I know, we picked up three new nurses."

"Did we? Well check their immunizations. They have a flu outbreak in the capital city. It sounds pretty severe. The local population is being hit hard, and humans are susceptible, and so are a few other species. Apparently, the captain took a group of officers to the consulate for dinner while we were planetside. We are going to need to round them all up for vaccinations. I am going to do a little research. I'll let you know if we will need to make the vaccination group bigger."

"Alright, I'll start pulling records." Christine said. It was not an unheard-of scenario. The crew was vaccinated for common illnesses, but periodically they were exposed to uncommon ones. The lab facilities were excellent, but synthesizing vaccines was much easier than creating cures.

"No, no, no!" called Treos.

Leonard frowned. Christine shrugged. Treos had been sitting at the desk looking through patient files for recent admits with potentially communicable diseases. She knew Leonard despised the scientist and would never have spoken if he had seen him. Leonard hadn't noticed, but she was refusing to be drawn into the fight. She felt she had enough work without arbitrating spats between the physicians. Treos fortunately, seemed unaware of Leonard's antagonism.

Treos continued, "This is a great opportunity to test the admission section of my unit! This is fantastic. I'll go initiate right now." He jumped up and ran towards the admission area, where he had his work space.

Christine looked at Leonard apologetically. He shook his head and said, "Do me a favor, could you look too, cross check so that we know for sure he doesn't miss anyone?"

Christine nodded. "Sure," she said. "I may even have it done before he finished initiating."

16:40  
McCoy leaned in the doorway of the largest conference room in the medical unit. It was beta shift. John Treos was addressing the crew members considered susceptible to the flu that had accompanied the captain to the dinner at the Ertruck embassy. Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Sulu, Lieutenant Uhura, Lieutenant Reuben, Ensign Chekov, and Mr. Jamen all sat quietly and listened as Dr. Treos explained the relative risks of their recent flu exposure.

"I can see here that you have all responded quickly to my communique asking you to describe your activities while on Ertruck, and I want to thank you for that. Really good work, way to be accepting responsibility for yourselves. The data was collated and run through my risk assessment and management protocol, and I thought I would share the results with you right now. This is really exciting, I haven't seen it myself yet." Treos sent the information to the screen above his head. He looked at it like he was preparing to announce lottery winners.

McCoy snorted, "You haven't seen it yourself?"

"No," said Treos. "I am not running this case, my program is, remember?"

"Don't you know what it's going to say Treos? A first-year medical student would know how to handle a situation like this."

"I know what I would recommend, and I know what you would recommend, I am interested in seeing what my program recommends." Treos said. He returned his attention to the board above his head. "Okay," he said excitedly, "this says your risk of infection is low, but just to be on the safe side it recommends vaccinating the whole group."

"Which is exactly what I said two hours ago, well before we started this ridiculous rigmarole." McCoy said with a frown. He turned to address the crew. "The local authorities say this virus requires close physical proximity to spread. The chances of any of you having it aren't great, but we want to be on the safe side."

"The point is, the program reached the correct decision without input from either of us. It would be possible for the program to plan the health care of the entire team without input from a biologic at all. Excuse me, I am going to go set up the program." Treos left the room, almost skipping in his eagerness.

The captain smirked at the CMO and asked, "Did he just call you a biologic Bones?"

"We're all just biologics to him. Even Spock. His goal is to create a completely automated medical unit. He has been scurrying around here for weeks trying to seize control of my team. He is running this one, well he's letting his machines run it. But don't worry. I am watching, and as soon as he really screws up I will take over."

The captain raised and eyebrow, "As soon as he screws up? You mean after he screws up you'll get involved? Not reassuring Bones."

"Worst case scenario for you, you get the flu. Worst case scenario for me, there are no major screw ups and I have to listen to him talk for another three weeks. You tell me who is going to suffer worse." McCoy said.

Dr. Treos popped back into the room, followed by a large robot. It was not humanoid in appearance. It was a white cylinder with half a dozen smaller cylinders made of different materials hanging from it like arms. It floated behind Treos, humming quietly.

"I thought you all might enjoy seeing the future of medicine. This is Patient Care Unit 1. I designed the prototype as part of my doctoral work. I have two here, they can do anything a nurse can do and are much easier to sterilize afterwards! Ha ha! Seriously, Patient Care Unit 1 is going to give you your hypos. You all want to line up?"

"That's a robot," said the captain. "So what? We have lots of robots."

"This is not a robot, this is a patient care unit, it is radically different." Treos insisted.

"That's a machine programmed to perform a specific task. It's a robot." Captain Kirk said coolly. Treos frowned but didn't reply.

"Is that thing safe?" Reuben asked doubtfully.

"Completely, I would let it give me a hypo anytime. If you want it to use your arm roll up your sleeve. It is programmed to look for uncovered flesh. That's why it floats, it can reach injuries on any part of the body. It can give it to you on your neck but many people have described the experience of having them work around one's throat as, well, as unsettling."

"Have you in fact ever let it give you a hypo?" asked Uhura.

"Haven't had the need yet, but when I do I am definitely going to have it come from Patient Care Unit 1. Far cleaner than gloved hands."

Jamen was watching the machine with undisguised horror. Chekov crossed his arms defensively and looked over at Dr. McCoy beseechingly. McCoy pretended not to notice. Chekov stepped back, and murmured something softly in Russian.

"You're right," Uhura said. "They do."

"What'd he say?" asked the captain.

"He thinks it looks like a floating squid."

"Hey, good observation Chekov!" Sulu said with a laugh. He began to roll up his sleeve.

Captain Kirk jumped up, always willing to go first. He said, "These sleeves are way too tight to get up over my arms."

Sulu said, "Why? Oh wait, let me guess? Because of those giant guns."

"I wasn't going to mention them, but I guess they are hard to miss," said the captain. He pulled his arm completely out of his shirt and stood in front of the machine. He said, "Come and get me." Without looking back at the crew, he added, "Stop worrying Chekov, it can't possibly hurt more than when Bones does it."

The robot floated up, a mechanical voice that sounded quite a bit like Treos said, "Please state your name and rank clearly and in Standard."

"Kirk, James T., captain."

The lower arms of the robot rotated up and in, around the captain's bicep. One quickly brushed his arm and the slight hiss of a hypo discharging could be heard. The captain moaned loudly, then yelled, "My arm, my arm. Bones, my arm." McCoy shoved through the crew and grabbed the captain's arm. He looked at it and then dropped it angrily.

"Not funny Jim." McCoy said.

The captain laughed, "A little funny Bones."

"Are you kidding me?" asked Uhura of the captain as she offered her arm to the robot. "What are you four? Uhura, Nyota, Lieutenant."

"Please state your name and rank clearly and in Standard," said the robot.

Uhura frowned, "I just did," she said.

The machine intoned again, "Please state your name and rank clearly and in Standard."

"Fine," said Uhura. "Uhura, Nyota, lieutenant." The machine gave her a shot and she pulled her sleeve down.

Jamen stepped out of line and pushed Chekov ahead of him.

Sulu waited for the machine to ask, identified himself, then stood still and let the robot give him his shot. "It doesn't hurt," he said.

"I want the doctor to give me mine." Chekov said.

"Not an option, this is science gentlemen." Treos said happily. "Did you notice how the business end of the arm retracts after each injection? It is exposed to a brief puff of radiation, completely sterilizing it between patients. It could go on for hours, and still be completely clean."

"Radiation?" asked Uhura, who had tolerated her shot easily.

"Brief puff, just enough to see that nothing is living on the arm." said Treos.

"The arm feels creepy." Reuben said, flinching slightly with his injection.

"Well it's difficult to come up with a natural feeling material that can survive repeated exposure to radiation." said Treos cheerfully, "Come on boys you're next."

Jamen and Chekov looked at each other. Jamen gestured toward the robot, "You're the officer." he said.

Chekov sighed and pulled his sleeve up over his elbow. He stood stiffly as the robot rotated into position around his upper arm.

"Please state your name and rank clearly and in Standard." said Patient Care Unit 1.

"Chekov, Pavel A., ensign." Chekov said, looking doubtfully at the machine.

There was a pause and then a loud beep, Chekov jumped back and the machine withdrew its arms. It said, "This medication is not appropriate for you, please see the admissions desk for more information."

Chekov smiled at the ceiling. Jamen said, "No fair, why are you always so lucky?"

"Interesting!" crowed Treos, pulling out his PADD and starting to tap it. "Let's see what this is about shall we?"

The machine beeped again, and then again. Treos looked at it and said, "Now none of that." He tapped at his PADD and then frowned as the machine continued to beep loudly. He looked at the crew, "It's calling for the attention of the on-staff person, in this case me. I am telling it I am here, I'm not sure why it isn't acknowledging me." The machine beeped again. "Let me just get this into the hall," he said and gently pushed the robot out of the room. He shut the door. The room got quieter but it was still possible to hear a periodic beep. McCoy wondered how long it would be until one of the nurses pushed the thing into a storage closet, or a waste chute.

Treos looked at Chekov, "You're allergic to the serum."

Chekov shook his head and said, "I doubt that sir, I am not allergic to anything."

"Your medical records say otherwise, there are notations against entire classes of drugs." said Treos.

"Oh, yes, those," Chekov said quietly. He looked over at McCoy again.

McCoy cleared his throat and said, "Those aren't allergies, they're more, intolerances."

The captain added, "It's comedy gold is what it is." Chekov sighed.

McCoy did not like to discuss his patients in public. He looked at Chekov who nodded and made a 'go ahead' gesture. "He's been known to get a little loopy from drugs, especially pain meds or sedation, definitely anti-anxiety meds. If people don't know and he seems a little off, they sometimes try to give him something extra to calm down. For him, combinations can be volatile. It's not an allergy, he just needs his meds titrated carefully, and maybe a little extra watching. It's all in the notes."

"Last time it was like someone set a pack of Tasmanian devils lose in sick bay." the captain said happily. Chekov sighed again.

"Well something is triggering the contraindication subprogram." Treos said. "I will study this, but it might take a while. In the meantime, Mr. Jamen, why don't you come with me and I will start up Patient Care Unit 2? You need your vaccination."

"Patient Care Unit 2?" Jamen asked unhappily.

"There's two of them. I hate a cutesy name, this is science." Treos said. Opening the door and gesturing towards the admissions desk. As Jamen followed him into the hall they could hear Patient Care Unit 1 beep.

"Well, at least he's going to be busy for a while." McCoy said.

"Doc, listen, give Chekov his shot. He needs it." Sulu said.

"Hikaru, Dr. Treos said I don't. And this is science." Chekov said.

"If any of us need it you do Pav. You had way more exposure than the rest of us."

"How do you figure that?" asked the captain.

"Cause of that girl, the ambassador's daughter?" Sulu said.

"Oh, he barely talked to her," Uhura said.

Sulu and Chekov looked at each other. Chekov looked away first. He asked, "Dr. McCoy, could I just sign something and you give me the hypo?"

McCoy nodded. "Probably, but let me talk to Treos. He's pretty controlling about his research. I doubt it matters much anyway. The info I got says it requires an exchange of a fairly large amount of body fluids to get this virus. A sneeze wouldn't do it. The health department at Ertruck says they consider the primary method of infection to be sex, and so none of you have anything to worry about."

The captain said, "From what I heard, on Ertruck sex is the primary method of getting everything. Which is a nice way of saying Sulu that this disease is not spread by playing the piano while a girl sits next to you. Chekov's perfectly safe."

McCoy had heard the same thing about Ertruck, and apparently so had the crew. Jamen and Reuben grinned like monkeys. Chekov looked mortified. McCoy was not certain which reaction he found more annoying. He said, "Stop acting like teenagers. We are discussing biology, not telling jokes in a locker room. We're trying to protect you from a disease, you know, in case a cook spit on the food or something."

Reuben covered his mouth with his hand and murmured, "or something." Chekov and Sulu looked at each other again.

"Yeah Chekov, stop acting like a teenager," laughed the captain.

"Yes sir, I heard very amusing," Chekov said distractedly. He looked at Sulu and added, "I filled out that questionnaire he sent."

"You know who really acts like a teenager Jim?" asked McCoy.

"Everything?" asked Sulu. Chekov nodded.

"And he didn't even ask about it, that seems weird. Actually, he seems weird. Are you sure he's a doctor? I don't think I trust him." Sulu said.

"Why is it necessary to still talk about this?" Chekov muttered.

"I just told you why," said McCoy. "You need to listen."

"And think," Sulu said with a smile. "Think next time."

"Next time," Chekov said dismissively, shaking his head.

"What are you talking about?" asked the captain.

Sulu and Chekov exchanged one more look. Chekov shook his head, hard.

Sulu shrugged. He looked at the captain and said, "nothing sir."

Chekov asked again, "Can't you just give me the shot Dr. McCoy?"

"Let me look into the allergy thing. I doubt there's anything to it, but now he's managed to get me a little concerned. I'll get back to you. In the meantime, if any of you start sneezing or run a fever get back down here immediately. And Chekov eat in your room, and make sure you avoid all intimate contact." Chekov blushed.

"Not that big a problem Bones," laughed the captain.

"Oh, there's no accounting for taste," said Reuben. Chekov sighed and putting his head up like he was standing at attention, stared miserably at the wall behind McCoy.

Watching him, McCoy wished he could inoculate someone from teasing like he could for the flu. He cleared his throat and said, "I guess we have covered about everything. Why don't you all go do something useful?"

The crew left. Chekov bolted, the rest followed more leisurely. McCoy could hear Jim in the passageway, trying again, "Tell me what you guys are talking about Sulu."

"You are going to have to ask Mr. Chekov sir." Sulu responded firmly. He paused a few seconds and then added, "And I would encourage you to ask him until he answers you. It's pretty good."

McCoy went out to the main desk and called up the medical records for Chekov, Pavel A. He was just opening the file when two nurses rushed past him towards the supply rooms. He stood up to watch them. After a few seconds, they ran back the way they had come, arms heavily laden. He stepped out from behind the desk and started after them. As he did so Chapel came the other direction. She gestured at him to sit down and took the seat next to him.

What's up?" he asked.

Chapel said, "Jamen fainted. Treos refused to have any of the staff standing by and the robot didn't catch him. He hit his forehead on a table on his way down and his nose on the floor when he landed. He's out cold and there's blood pretty much everywhere. Treos insists the robot is going to fix it. Do yourself a favor and just don't go in there."

McCoy asked, "Is Jamen stable?"

"He's fine, he's still out cold but Coh is there. He'll need his nose set and the gash repaired. Treos is insisting we let the patient care unit handle it. You know it will kill you to watch, I am telling you, spare yourself this one."

McCoy sat down. He closed Chekov's file and opened one for Jamen, Bobo P.


	2. Chapter 2

Tuesday

06:45  
Bobo Jamen opened his eyes and looked around the room. Someone leaned over the bed and looked at him.

"Good morning. I am Lieutenant Sascheja, your nurse. Could you please tell me your name?" she asked, speaking slowly.

"Bobo Jamen. What happened?"

"We'll get to that shortly Mr. Jamen, do you know where you are?"

"I'm in sick bay, obviously. The last thing I remember I was, I. Oh man, I fainted, didn't I?"

"Do you know the date?" the nurse continued to speak slowly, enunciating carefully.

"If I could remember things like star dates do you think I would work security?"

The young man started to sit up, but grabbed his head and swayed slightly. Miss Sascheja supported him gently back to a lying position. Dr. McCoy was passing by the ward doors and seeing them, came in.

"How's the patient?" he asked.

"Oriented to person and place, disoriented to time." responded Sascheja.

Jamen shook his head, thought better of it and put a hand to his forehead. "I am no more disoriented than I usually am. I know what shift I work, I don't care what the stardate is."

"Fair enough," said McCoy.

"It is usually agreed that orientation to person, place, and time is indicative of recovery from head trauma." Sascheja sniffed.

Miss Sascheja was an excellent worker. McCoy appreciated that she ran the gamma shift like a well-oiled machine, but she was not known for her flexibility. He asked the young man, "I'm just coming to work, what shift does that make it?"

"Alpha," said Jamen.

"Oriented to time," the doctor said with satisfaction. "Well Mr. Jamen, you fainted."

"I figured, I do it almost every time I get a hypo. I tried to tell Dr. Treos I was going to need a chair. He told me to talk to the machine. Literally. Well, the machine didn't listen."

"We'll make a notation in your records." said Miss Sascheja.

"It's already there. Seriously, I've done this like four times."

"Interesting," said McCoy. "Well this time you managed to knock yourself out. You had a big gash on your forehead, and you broke your nose badly."

"My nose? Is it alright?" Jamen asked anxiously. He was Tridish, and like all males of his species, he took great pride in his proboscis.

"It is still bandaged, but your surgery was done by entirely by the patient care units designed and supervised by Dr. John Treos. He has both an MD and a PhD. He is a renowned efficiency expert. I wouldn't worry." Lieutenant Sascheja said. She sounded slightly awed. McCoy grimaced.

"Treos, he's the guy that wouldn't listen when I said I would probably faint. He seemed like a nut to me." Jamen said.

McCoy smiled darkly and said, "Sascheja, make sure Mr. Jamen gets one of those patient satisfaction surveys Treos keeps mentioning."

Jamen reached up and began pulling at his bandages. "I want to see." he said.

Sascheja looked at McCoy who said, "It's been ten hours, let's open him up and have a look." The nurse started to gently remove the dressings. The lump on Jamen's face got smaller rapidly. McCoy began to have a bad feeling and leaned in to assist her. As the last of the bandages fell away Sascheja dropped her hands to her sides, frowned and looked up at the doctor.

McCoy cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Jamen, you need to be prepared that you don't look quite yourself. I want to assure you that this is a temporary situation. Try not to worry. You will eventually be completely back to normal. I do think you are going to require some additional surgery."

"What do you mean?" the young man asked. He reached up and felt his face, when he touched his nose his eyes widened. "Where is my snout?" he asked, voice rising in fear. "I need to see. I need to see it right now!"

"I am not sure that is the best idea," Sascheja began.

Jamen began to swing his legs out of the bed. "I want to see my face now!" he yelled.

"Sit down son. Miss Sascheja, bring Mr. Jamen a mirror." McCoy said.

Jamen stayed in the bed, but sat rigidly while Sascheja went to the nurses' desk and rummaged for a mirror. She handed it to Jamen and stood gravely by the doctor. Jamen started to raise the mirror to his face. McCoy put his hand on top of the young man's, stopping him for just a second.

"I can fix it," he said.

Jamen jerked his hands away and raised the mirror to his face. He gasped. He looked at McCoy and said, "He gave me a Terran nose."

"I can fix it." McCoy said again.

"He gave me a Terran nose." Jamen repeated, then he began to get angry. His voice rose, "I look like a eunuch! I am never going to be able to go home! What's wrong with you people? What kind of hospital is this?" The young man held his face and chanted, "He gave me a Terran nose! He gave me a Terran nose! He gave me a Terran nose!"

McCoy turned to the nurse and said, "Do you want to handle this, or should I?"

"Sir, I am perfectly capable." the lieutenant said.

"Then I'm going to leave this in your hands Sascheja, if he won't calm down sedate him. Call me when you are ready, we need to find some of the tissue to regrow his wattles and frills, there's probably some subdural stuff underneath the scars. I'll go get a rejuv unit."

Sascheja turned to her work, McCoy left for the supply room. He met the nurse manager in the closet.

"Morning Chapel." he said. "Treos's fool robot performed completely unwanted plastic surgery on Mr. Jamen last night while setting his nose."

Christine shook her head and grabbed for some towels. "Food poisoning from a homemade cheese cake at a birthday party. Six pukers so far, I asked for a copy of the guest list, we are expecting up to ten more."

"Alright, you win." McCoy said, pulling down the smallest rejuv unit they had. "In about twenty-four hours we should have enough new flesh to work with. I'll put him on the OR schedule for Thursday." He paused and then added grimly, "Has Dr. Treos shown up yet? We need to have a few words he and I." 

10:48  
"The doors on a starship close automatically." McCoy said crankily.

"Most of them." agreed Meyers, watching the doctor work with an interest unusual in young men who wander into the medical unit with most of the flesh hanging off their left hand.

"I think Dr. McCoy is wondering about your injury." explained the nurse assisting in the surgery. She was young, maybe one of the new staff members they had picked up on Ertruck. McCoy couldn't remember her name, but he was pleased with her work. When Meyers had presented himself at the desk the only other nurse not busy with the food poisoning victims had taken one look at his exposed muscles and tendons and turned green. McCoy couldn't abide a weak stomach in a health care worker.

"That's right, I am wondering how you managed to get your hand slammed in a door. After that you can explain how you managed to skin yourself." McCoy said.

"Weapons cabinets don't close automatically, because you don't know how many weapons you are going to need. If we were arming an entire division in an emergency, like if the ship was boarded or something, we wouldn't want to have to reopen it for everyone to grab a phaser. It would take too long." Meyers said.

"That makes sense." said the nurse.

"You have to close it when you're done." Meyers voice started to sound a little angry. "Obviously, I mean, that's important. If you don't close it anyone can get at the weapons."

"Sure," agreed the young woman.

"Obvious to you, obvious to me, obvious to everybody but that idiot Goj. I have explained it to him about a million times, but he always leaves it open. He did it again today, after a drill. I had slipped my hand in there to show him how easy it would be for someone to steal a weapon, and I was reminding him how it would be all his fault if someone did, when he slammed it shut with his elbow. My hand was still in there."

"Ouch." said the young woman.

"Yeah, I must have jerked my hand up and caught it on the blade of something, cause when I pulled my hand out most of my skin stayed in there."

"Wow." said the nurse. Meyer nodded, the movement shook the stasis field. McCoy frowned. The young woman must not have learned yet that at a certain point it was important to stop encouraging the patients.

"Yeah, by that time the lock had reset and the chief had to reopen the case. He's not happy. The cabinet door is pretty bent. I imagine I'm off the roster for at least a week."

"More like a month." McCoy said.

"A month! That's too long doc, I got a job."

"You've got injuries to your micro circulation. You must protect it until it is completely healed. Your job will still be there when you've finished." McCoy said, gently guiding a connection into place.

"That idiot Goj. This is all his fault." The young man looked at his hand and then up at the doctor. "How long till I can punch?" 

16:50  
Leonard sat at the front desk and opened the patient records. He started with Jamen, noted that Treos had yet to check on the young man. He read the note left by Patient Care Unit 1, who was listed as the surgeon for Jamen. They described a normal repair of a badly broken nose. It did mention the unusual amount of excess skin removed, which was of course the decorative tissue the young Tridish had been so proud of. So far Treos had managed to avoid him, but McCoy was still planning to engage. The first rule in medicine was do no harm. The injury was unconscionable. He picked up a stylus and began to add his own notes. He had made two notations when the alarm went off on his communicator. Surprised, he opened it.

"McCoy!" It was Giotto, sounding uncharacteristically upset. "I just sent Lieutenant Josiah Gouyen up to you on a stretcher. He took a ball straight to the chest and went down. He's got no pulse, they're doing CPR, but he's not responsive."

"Christine!" yelled McCoy. She popped her head out of the ward door. "We have an arrest in the elevators. Prep a cardiac room. I'm washing." She nodded and went right to work.

He came into the room as the nurses moved a burly young man onto a biobed. He gave a quick look to the equipment, checking to see that he had what he needed, and said, "Let's begin." 

21:38  
McCoy hit send and his request for permission to curtail John Treos' interactions with the crew was on its way to headquarters. He leaned back in his office chair and savored the quiet. It had been easy to restart Gouyen's heart, but a complicated several hours to make sure it was going to stay beating. All the neuro exams he had done suggested the young man had escaped without serious complications, a testament to the first aid skills of his fellow security officers. But McCoy knew it would be several days before he was convinced there was no lasting damage.

How, he wondered, is it that a person could take a thousand rugby balls to the chest with not a problem and then suddenly have one connect at just the right time to stop a heart? Well, he knew how, and he might never know why.

There was a soft knock at the door, McCoy shifted upright in his seat and barked, "Come," expecting to see M'Benga, or maybe even the illusive Treos. There was the usual swoosh, and Christine stood in the doorway.

"I brought you a sandwich," she said. "You missed lunch. And then you missed dinner."

"I'm not hungry." McCoy said.

Christine walked into the room and set the sandwiches on the desk. She took the patient's seat opposite his. "One for you, one for me."

"I'm too tired to be hungry." McCoy said.

She shrugged and said, "You need to eat, you need something in your stomach to soak up the bourbon."

"What bourbon?" asked McCoy.

"The ones I'm pouring us," Christine said, reaching past McCoy to the cabinet behind him and lifting down his bottle. She set water glasses on the table and poured them each a generous shot.

"So now we drink bourbon with," he lifted the top of his sandwich and asked, "Pastrami?"

"Days like today, we drink with anything." she said. She raised her glass to him and took a sip.

"It was quite a day. How are the pukers? I was so busy I never even go to see them."

"You know Robinson, on beta shift? He has started calling them the poisoned partiers. They are good. We are keeping two overnight because they don't have roommates and are so sedated from their anti-nausea meds I don't think they would be safe alone. Everyone else got sent home with instructions to stick to clear fluids for now. I'll send someone out to check on them in the morning, but I think the worst is behind us. How's Meyers?"

"Fine, I am keeping him overnight because I don't trust him to stay down. Sometimes I think those security guys don't have normal pain receptors. He doesn't even seem that worried about his injury. He is quite concerned about revenging himself on one of his coworkers. Remind me to warn Giotto."

"And you saved Mr. Gouyen."

"Yes, I did."

"That's good work Leonard."

"Thank you, Christine, and thank you for running the entire unit today with almost no assistance from me."

"I would have called the relief doctor if I needed one Leonard, you know that."

"I do, I do. It is a great help to know I am unnecessary."

"Never."

"And speaking of unnecessary, I don't suppose we ever heard from the great Dr. Treos did we?"

"We did, he was in engineering, working on the beeping problem with his robot, sorry, his patient care unit. He wasn't aware of Mr. Jamen's dissatisfaction with his nose, was deeply sorry to hear about it, and happy to know that you were, and this is a quote, 'available to deal with these little snafus'. I told him you were eager to discuss the future of his program and he asked me to remind you of his orders and how excited Starfleet is to see the results of his work."

"I'm the CMO, and this wasn't a snafu, it was a catastrophe."

Well, please don't dismiss him until after tomorrow. We have physicals scheduled for the yeoman corps, and we are going to need all hands."

"You have got to be kidding."

"No I do not. It's their turn. I have four extra nurses scheduled for alpha shift tomorrow. We open for business at 0500, so that we can get the gamma people as they go off shift. Hopefully at least some of the alpha people will get up and get it finished too. I think anyone with any sense will be finished by 0800, but the vast majority of the division will wander in all day long and disrupt whatever else we are trying to do. I figure mandatory physicals may be the one task his robots might be useful for."

"Okay," Leonard sighed. He knew it would be useless to complain. All Starfleet personnel were required to have a yearly physical, and no matter when they were scheduled it was never convenient. They did them by division, one or two groups a month. Depending on the division size physicals might take one day or they might take a week. The PAs and nurses did most of the work, but Starfleet required an MD to sign off on the reports, so McCoy tried to spend as much time as he could helping. He thought the physicals weren't a bad way to get to meet members of the crew, and anyway, he didn't like to imply that there were tasks he thought were beneath him.

'It's always surprising,' McCoy thought, 'how much better the world looks with some food in my stomach.' He took another sip of his drink and leaned back, preparing to relax. Suddenly he sat up.

"Chapel," he said, "What should we do about Chekov?"

She shrugged and said, "Why, what's he done now?"

"Nothing, he was part of the dinner party at Ertruck so he was exposed to the flu. Treos claims he's allergic to a component of the vaccine so he didn't give it to him. I was planning to try to figure out whether that was true, and maybe reformat the injection, but I didn't get started this morning. I didn't even remember anything about until just now."

"Leonard, you can't do anything tonight. If you insist on doing this you'll just have to start tomorrow. Do you even know what it is specifically you need to remove?"

"I don't. I haven't even thought about this all day. Dammit, I hate when I forget things."

"Be reasonable. You barely had time to breathe today. And there's no one in the lab, I would have to call someone in."

"I've done it before."

"Yes, and then they stay up all night, and you feel guilty and so you stay up all night with them, and the lab is behind for the rest of the week and you're exhausted and chew everyone's head off for days. It's probably almost never a good idea, but in this case, I don't think it is even a little worthwhile."

McCoy decided to ignore the criticism about chewing. Instead he asked, "What do you mean if I insist on doing this?"

"I think it's a little late to try and reformulate a vaccine."

McCoy sighed. "You may be right. Here's the thing, if he's going to get sick we only have three days on the outside until he does. The vaccine we have takes about 48 hours to reach peak effectiveness, a new one might take longer. It might be too late for a vaccine to do much good. And I am not sure we can effectively reformat a vaccine in that time anyway. And if we do, we won't have any time to test it before we administer it. The other thing is, he shouldn't get sick anyway, all the information I gathered says this is not a particularly contagious virus. It is spread only through fluids, and it has a short life span outside of the body. It is theoretically possible to get it from being coughed on, but the health department on Ertruck said intercourse is considered the primary method of transmission."

"Intercourse? Sexual intercourse to get the flu?"

"It's always a good method of spreading viruses, but most people cough more than they, well you know. Apparently that is not necessarily the case on Ertruck. Anyway, you know he wasn't exposed in the primary fashion and no one at the ambassador's house had started coughing yet when they were there. He shouldn't even need a vaccine."

"He shouldn't need one, but you are worried that he might." Chapel said,

"Because it is Chekov, and if it is possible to get ill he does, and he never gets just a little under the weather."

McCoy paused for a few seconds and then said, "No. He doesn't."

"Leonard, you need to step back and really think about what you are considering. Take the relationship out of it. Realistically, it is one ensign, who may potentially get the flu. Even if he does it isn't likely to cause an epidemic, and we will manage it just fine."

McCoy grunted but did not reply. Chapel tapped her glass thoughtfully, and then said. "You know Leonard, when a case involves the captain or this particular ensign, you get a little too personally involved."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do too."

Leonard frowned.

"You know you don't trust anyone else to take care of them." Chapel said.

"I trust you."

She laughed, "anyone else?"

McCoy thought a while, and then said, "M'Benga spends more time talking than operating, but I admit it seems to work for him. He is a fine physician."

"You think he is adequate to cover the night shift."

"Well, if he tried all that talking during the day we would never get any actual work done."

"How about Patel?"

"Patel is twelve."

"She is nearly thirty, and fully qualified."

"Okay, you want me to say it? She's fine. She does the minimum. I acknowledge I haven't seen her make any big mistakes, but she treats her work like she is checking tasks off a to do list. She cuts out as soon as her shift ends and if she thinks about the patients while she is off duty I have never seen any evidence of it."

"Just because we never stick to working our assigned shifts doesn't mean no one should."

"It is her first posting. No one is of any use during their first posting."

"Isn't the Enterprise technically your first posting Leonard?"

"I'm an exception," he said smugly and took another sip. When Chapel didn't acknowledge the joke, he added, "I was in private practice before I joined up. I made my mistakes there."

"Convenient," Chapel said dryly. She continued, "You know you can't be responsible for them."

"I'm the CMO, I am responsible for the whole damn ship."

"You are responsible to see that they have medical care available. But you can't assure that they won't get sick or hurt. You can't will them into being careful or lucky. You have to accept that some things just happen. You rearranging the lab schedule, and then staying up all night yourself to potentially finish a vaccine for one ensign who may not even need it is not a good use of the CMO's time."

She waited for a reply, when none came she said again, "You have to be careful Leonard. Sometimes you lose all perspective. It is even more noticeable when you are caring for the captain."

McCoy sat up straighter. "I most certainly do not," he said. "I provide the same level of care and interest to every member of this crew."

Christine pressed her lips together and did not reply.

McCoy frowned and said, "So you don't think I should even start." Chapel looked at him uncertainly. He clarified, "The vaccine, you don't think we should even look into it."

"I don't. But if you are determined to, maybe consider a compromise. Don't rearrange every aspect of their work, but have the lab techs start working on another formation tomorrow. If they finish quickly give it to Chekov, and if they don't and he ends up with the flu you'll have one more tool for the second round of immunizations you'll need to order."

"That's probably reasonable." McCoy said. He finished his drink and capped the bottle.

"So, we are done drinking." she said.

"I don't think I can deal with a hangover and the yeoman's corps at the same time." McCoy said. Chapel laughed, wished him a good night, and left.

After she was gone McCoy sat in his silent office and thought about what she had said. He didn't normally worry about what other people thought, but he considered Chapel one of his few friends. He both trusted and valued her opinion. To help him think, he uncapped the bottle and poured himself another round. He held his glass and tried to be brutally honest with himself.

He was confident he provided excellent care to every patient. But she had not really said he didn't. She had said he was overly involved with some patients. He could understand that it might look that way. Since early in the mission McCoy had insisted that he would care for Jim Kirk himself. But not just because of their friendship, hard as he tried to pretend otherwise, the Enterprise was a military vessel. The captain was the most valuable member of the crew, completely irreplaceable. Both tradition and good sense held that he deserved every attention. All captains were cared for by their chief medical officers. McCoy did not regret it and no one should challenge it.

He tapped his glass against his teeth. The problem was, he wasn't as sure she was wrong about Chekov. He liked to think he would be equally concerned if some strapping security ensign, or even one of the innumerable command track lieutenants had been exposed to the flu. But he wasn't sure. He knew Chekov, because Jim liked the boy, and occasionally let him tag along for shore leave or poker night. And then too, he got sick a lot. He was second only to Jim for number of visits this year. Of course unlike Jim, Chekov was a good patient. He never spent his visits seducing or arguing with the staff. Except for those few drug induced exceptions, he sat quietly, and seldom complained. McCoy liked that. And then the kid was just so young. McCoy didn't really approve of his posting on the ship. It was impossible not to take an interest.

McCoy shifted in his chair, took a gulp of the bourbon, held it in his mouth, and acknowledged that there was another reason he was fond of the ensign. Chekov was the youngest person McCoy really knew. He was a little older than McCoy's only child, a girl he'd seen very seldom even before he left for space. And sometimes he used the ensign to get insights into Joanna's world.

In one of her infrequent comms, written not too long after they left Earth, Joanna had mentioned a concert she had enjoyed. McCoy had been thinking about it during his daily visit to the bridge and had asked Jim if he had heard of the musicians she had mentioned. He hadn't, but Uhura had, she had dismissed them as amateurish. Chekov had looked shocked and insisted she was mistaken. From his position at the science station Spock had raised one eyebrow, Chekov had stopped speaking and sunk down in his seat.

The exchange had given McCoy an idea. That night he had waited in the galley until he saw Chekov come in alone. He had called him over, offered him a seat and casually worked the conversation around to Joanna's music. Chekov had been very happy to discuss it. McCoy had just sat back and listened. Later, he had repeated a few of Chekov's comments in a comm. When Joanna replied, she had asked what sort of music he liked. He had put a lot of thought into his answer, he had wanted to encourage her. It had felt like a discussion, usually in their messages they sort of traded itineraries and wished each other well.

He had done it several times since, Chekov never failed to take the bait. The kid could be very enthusiastic, but McCoy enjoyed listening to him. He liked to imagine Joanna was passionate about her interests too. Sometimes McCoy asked Chekov about books or other things Joanna mentioned, but usually it was music. McCoy had never explained why he asked and the ensign had mistaken McCoy's questions for personal interest. Sometimes he sent McCoy samples from musicians they discussed. When he listened to them McCoy felt like he was sharing something with Joanna.

McCoy drained his glass and set it firmly on the table. He hadn't realized other people had noticed the discussions. As much as he enjoyed talking to Chekov, he would stop, or at least he would do it less frequently. He did not want there to be even the perception that the CMO had favorites. Chapel was right, he needed to be careful to treat the ensign like one more member of the crew. He looked at the chrom, sighed, and started off to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Wednesday

0645  
McCoy came to work a little early, he wanted to do a little research before he started his discussion with the lab about the vaccinations. There were three gamma shift yeomen in the waiting area when he arrived. They all greeted him enthusiastically. He grunted and hurried past. He wondered if there were actual recruiting standards for yeoman. All of them, male and female, all species, even the non-humanoid ones, were chipper, happy souls. He found it exhausting to speak to them. He definitely needed coffee before he tried.

0820  
McCoy consulted with M'Benga about Jamen's nose. They stood next to the young man and looked from his face, surrounded by skin rejuvenators, to his image on his ID and the holos supplied by his many friends.

"I think you're going to have enough tissue to work with by this evening. Maybe schedule him for surgery first thing in the morning?" M'Benga said.

"That's what I was thinking." McCoy said.

"How's it look?" Jamen asked nervously.

"Fine." McCoy said.

M'Benga said in his kind way, "It looks great Bobo. You have already replaced quite a bit of the skin that was removed. The colors are wonderful. When Dr. McCoy is finished, you won't be able to tell this ever happened."

Jamen gave McCoy a skeptical look and then turned to M'Benga. "Can't you do the surgery?" he asked.

M'Benga said quickly, "Dr. McCoy is more familiar with Tridish anatomy. You want the surgeon with the most experience doing your reconstruction Bobo. And I am the scheduled physician for gamma shift, anything could happen tonight. You want your surgeon to be well rested. I will be there to assist, and I am looking forward to checking in after the procedure and seeing you look like yourself."

"Okay, sure, I guess." Jamen said unenthusiastically, giving McCoy another skeptical look.

They returned to the desk and McCoy sat down to make his notes on Jamen's record. He could hear M'Benga visiting with the nurses and some of the yeomen. They sounded like cheerful, chirping birds. He shifted his chair so as to be a little further away from the noise.

On his way out of the unit M'Benga stopped and asked, "Leonard, I wondered if I might have a word?"

McCoy looked up. "Sure," he said. "What's up?"

The other man sat down next to him, gave one of his big, sympathetic smiles and said, "I hope you know that I think you are an excellent physician Leonard."

McCoy nodded. "And I you." he said.

"This is not meant in any way as a criticism of any of your work. However, it occurs to me that you might consider being a little more encouraging of the patients, especially the younger ones. A smile can go a long way."

"Here's the deal." McCoy said. "When I look at Jamen's face I get mad. It is all I can do to not start screaming at the top of my lungs for Treos. I want to shove him and his entire robot brigade into the closest airlock for what they did to that young man."

M'Benga nodded gravely. "I understand, but I don't think Mr. Jamen does. A smile and perhaps some casual conversation might make it clearer to him that you are concerned about his welfare."

McCoy considered saying something about how many times he had received this particular piece of advice. But Geoffrey M'Benga was a kind man, and an excellent physician, and McCoy knew that he wasn't the easiest person to approach with advice, so instead he said, "I realize this was difficult for you to say, and I appreciate it. I will try to keep it in mind."

"It is the mark of a good man that he can accept advice." M'Benga said, patting McCoy's arm. McCoy controlled the urge to yank it away.

One of the nurses hurried in with a pile of PADDs. She set them on the desk. M'Benga gave her a big smile, which she returned. McCoy was conscious of the other man watching him. He sighed and then sat up straighter. He stretched his mouth into what he hoped was a welcoming grin. The nurse looked at him doubtfully and left quickly, almost running to the exam rooms.

M'Benga shrugged. McCoy returned his attention to his PADD. Chapel stepped through the doors from the back rooms. She looked at McCoy critically.

"Leonard," she said, "are you alright? Shernan said you looked like you were in horrible pain out here."

1110  
In an effort to remind him to stay immobile, McCoy put Meyer in a far more restrictive brace than he actually needed. Then he sent him to his room with strict instructions to stay there except for meals. Meyer nodded and signed the discharge instructions without seeming to pay much attention. McCoy felt certain they would be seeing him again soon.

He had a visit with Gouyen, who had not had another arrhythmia. He told him he would need a complete study of his cardiac function, which would take a few days to set it up. He might have been able to get it done more quickly, but really, he wanted to Gouyen to rest, and didn't want to subject either of them to the exam rooms while they were over run with yeomen.

There were no new admissions, so he went to help with the physicals. But Chapel said he should go eat first, that the staff was taking staggered breaks and they would need him more later. He decided to go to the mess for lunch. He had a salad and water. As usual, he was discouraged by the number of crew members stuffing themselves with carbohydrates.

As he was leaving he ran into Scotty, whose company he always enjoyed. He was initially sorry not to have timed his meal so that they could eat together. But a glance at the engineer's tray full of fried fish and potatoes changed his mind. He went back up to the unit.

When he walked in he could hear laughing and loud voices from the exam rooms. During physicals, they pushed all the dividers back and the individual exam rooms became a large exam suite. It was always crowded and the noise carried through the whole unit. Curious, he went back to see what was happening. The captain had arrived in his absence, and had brought in a very large platter of the worst snacks and several pitchers of juices and coffee. The hordes of yeomen seemed to be enjoying the treats. The nurses too seemed very happy, although Chapel must have been at lunch, she was nowhere to be seen. Jim was in the middle of things, laughing and teasing, enthusiastically accepting thanks. It was a circus. He went back out to the admitting desk.

1330  
He was sitting at the desk, surreptitiously playing bridge on his PADD, when a young man in a red shirt entered med bay. He was clutching a blood-soaked rag to his face. He walked up to the desk and said, "I dink my ose ay be broke."

"Yeah, and I think you may have lost a couple teeth." McCoy said rising and moving the rag. "Any idea where they might be?"

"On the flooh?"

"On the floor where? Back in security?" McCoy asked. The young man nodded. McCoy led him back toward the exam rooms. Chapel saw them coming and dispatched a young man to help. The nurse brought in a rejuv unit. McCoy helped the patient to the bed and went to wash his hands. When he returned, the nurse had the patient in a gown and medicated.

The nurse smiled and said, "This is Mr. Goj doctor. He claims to have slipped while in the changing room in security and hit his head on a bench. He has a broken nose, two missing front teeth, and a black eye. Interestingly, the injuries on his face form a rather boot like pattern. He also has bruises on his legs and arms, he is uncertain where they came from. He thinks perhaps from his fall."

"His fall huh, who were you fighting with Goj?"

"I wasn't fighting sir."

"You were fighting." McCoy said. He wondered why people insisted on pretending they weren't fighting. The entire ship was under surveillance at all times, it was virtually impossible to get away with anything. Beings who worked security certainly knew that. He did not ordinarily contradict patient's accounts of their injuries, unless he suspected outright abuse. He wanted the crew willing to seek medical care. He let the division heads be in charge of discipline, but he did not like to be lied to.

He checked the name tag on the nurse and said, "Lt. Brown, call down to security and have them look for a couple teeth. Resetting them is much easier than regrowing them. I'll set up the equipment here."

I took almost an hour, but eventually Goj's nose was set and his teeth were reinserted. He lay under the rejuvenator and dozed comfortably. He had maintained steadfastly that his injuries were from a fall.

14:30  
McCoy took a deep breath to prepare himself for the chaos, and then walked into the exam rooms. There were perhaps a dozen young crew members in the room, half a dozen nurses, and Chapel. He saw Treos's robots, but not the scientist.

They did physicals the same way every month. There was a station set up for each system of the body. Each station could handle up to three patients at a time. If everything ran smoothly each physical was completed in an hour or less. It was very noisy, because there were always at least two patients on the exercise machines at all times. And the yeomen, being the yeomen, had to call encouragement to each other as they worked. There was a great deal of clapping as individuals finished their fitness evaluations. McCoy had to bite his lip to keep himself from reminding the whole gang they were applauding people meeting minimum fitness requirements. No one was doing anything extraordinary. At least, he reminded himself, it was quieter than when it was security division's turn for physicals. They treated the fitness assessments as a challenge. They tried to top each other's performance and teams formed with chanting and fist pounding. The yeomen were at least cheery.

As soon as an individual made their way through all the stations they were finished, and free to go. Part of the problem with doing physicals is that division members enjoyed being together so much that they never hurried out. Between the machines, the voices, and the sheer numbers the exam room was loud.

McCoy picked up a PADD and took over for one of the nurses at the input section. It was the first station, it appeared to the patients that it was an entry into the system. It did serve that purpose, but it was also a low-level psych evaluation. Patients were asked about stress and life satisfaction. People who said anything alarming got flagged for a full evaluation at a later date.

McCoy's first patient was a shy little thing, from Savannah, so they had plenty to talk about. He spent a very pleasant twenty minutes with her before he sent her on her way. His next patient was a young man who had been raised on a colony in the farthest reaches. McCoy found that fascinating, and they talked awhile too. His next candidate was the captain's personal yeoman, Janice Rand.

He did the initial input work, asked all the standard questions and then added, "Are you off today?"

"No, but he's playing cribbage with the security guard with the broken nose so I thought I could at least get this started." Rand replied.

"The captain?" McCoy asked. Rand nodded. McCoy was surprised. Jim visited sick bay at least once daily, and he often stopped off to chat with the patients, but he was usually too busy to stay long enough to do more than exchange pleasantries.

"How's he have time for that?" he asked. Rand was responsible for organizing the captain's day. She didn't have to follow him around, she had plenty of other responsibilities to occupy her, but Jim really preferred a fly by the seat of his pants management style, and sometimes it required a great deal of effort to see that he met the regulation requirements for bookkeeping. McCoy did not envy Rand her work.

She said, "We have at least three more days of travel time till we reach our next mission. The bridge crew doesn't need him up there constantly. I mean how many times can he say, 'keep flying guys?'."

McCoy laughed. Rand was an anomaly in the corp. She looked the part, petite and blonde, but no one would have called her chipper. McCoy wondered if she had started out happy go lucky and the constant strain of keeping their captain on task had broken her. He knew Chapel was very fond of the girl, and Christine did not tolerate fools. He imagined it would be difficult to be both capable and ignored. He knew nothing angered him more than the captain's ability to do exactly as he wished without considering the consequences. Rand never looked effervescent, but she seemed to do alright with the stress, she ate, had friends. But perhaps she hid it. He decided to probe a little more deeply for signs of depression.

"Sulu's probably openly encouraging him to go visit the sick by this point." McCoy said.

Rand smiled, and said, "He usually sends him to engineering, because Mr. Scott never throws him out, and eventually you always do."

"True," laughed McCoy, "maybe I should start thinking of the rest of the crew and just let him stay as long as he wants."

"No need to sacrifice yourself doctor. I have already made plans for our leader's afternoon anyway."

"What?" McCoy asked a little uncertainly.

"When he finishes here he'll want a little lunch for himself, and then to go up to the bridge. When he gets there, he will lean back in his chair, feeling like he's master of the universe. He will feel so good that when I hand him just one little PADD for his signature, he'll do it. He has no way of knowing that I have preloaded that baby with everything he has ignored for the last month. And once he's begun, he's mine. He will be hearing and signing every report he has put off and no one is going to rescue him. I already told the bridge crew they better ignore any hints he makes for distraction or they will be answering to me. Nyota's on my side, and Spock probably agrees too. Sulu's the only one I worry about. I told him, if he interrupts me, it better be for a catastrophe."

"What about Chekov?" McCoy asked.

Rand snorted, her perfect little doll like lips tightening with contempt. "Chekov's no problem. He's afraid of me."

'I am a little afraid of you,' thought McCoy. "Um, Janice, what would you do if for some reason you couldn't get caught up with the work? Do you have any contingency plans?" He tried to think of a nice way to ask if she would get violent.

"Don't worry doctor, I don't need contingencies. Wait, are you afraid I would actually hurt him? Oh, you are! Ha! Look at me doctor, do I look like I would hurt anyone?" She smiled at him, clear blue eyes wide and innocent.

"No, but the question is, would you?" McCoy asked.

Rand laughed. "Of course not doctor." McCoy started to make a note on her file and then she added, "If he was hurt he wouldn't be able to write his name and we would only get further behind."

McCoy looked up with alarm. She laughed musically and said, "Teasing! I'm teasing Dr. McCoy. I had no idea you were so sensitive. I would never hurt anyone, and I would especially never hurt Captain James T. Kirk, galactic hero. I promise."

McCoy cleared his throat and then said, "Well Janice, good luck with your plan, now you know you can come talk to us if you begin to get feeling too frustrated with your work, right?"

"Frustrated? Why would I get frustrated? The best part of this job is figuring out how I am going to get it done. And doctor, I've never failed to get it done." She licked her lips and leaned back in her chair. Her expression made McCoy think of a lioness, surveying her pride.

"Okay, well, why don't you go on over to the lab station then. Hopefully we get you right through this and back to work on time." McCoy said, making a notation on Rand's chart to remind him to discuss the young woman with Chapel. Rand smiled sweetly and went on her way. McCoy watched her go, wishing he had more of a gift with psychology. He sighed and turned to meet his next patient. Sitting in front of him was John Treos.

"Leonard, hello." the man said happily, spreading his arms as if he were surrendering. McCoy said nothing. "Listen. I heard you wanted to talk to me, and I have been looking forward to it, but I have had so much to do and I think even you are going to have to admit that it was time well spent, I mean, look around, my patient care units are invaluable today." He gestured towards the robots, one was working in fitness assessment, and one was taking vitals.

McCoy did not turn to look. He narrowed his eyes and continued to stare at Treos.

"All programs have glitches Leonard. That is why they need to be tested." Treos said.

"Glitches? Did you say glitches? He's Tridish. The frills on their nose develop at adolescence. They are signs of sexual maturity. He considers what happened to be mutilation John, that is not a glitch. That is torture. It was gross medical malpractice for you to fail to supervise those things. I hope he sues you."

"He's a member of Starfleet, and I am operating under its jurisdiction. He can't sue."

"Which probably explains why you are testing out those things here."

"I resent that Leonard. I have a vision, and the brass supports me in it. It is technology based and mistakes are going to happen. I believe my work will help health care workers, and the galaxy's under served populations. I have no other motives."

"I want you off my ship."

"With all due respect, that isn't your decision. I think you should reread your orders. Starfleet has invested a great deal in my research, testing it is the next stage. The surgeon general is as excited as I am to see the final results. Even you have to admit my patient care units have performed admirably today."

"I admit nothing. They haven't caused obvious problems, but they've done nothing a first-year nursing student couldn't do, and we don't need to watch the students to make sure they don't mutilate the patients."

"You are making this far worse than it is. Mr. Jamen's nose was badly damaged in his fall. The unit assessed what tissue was there and made a decision based on what it saw, just as any being would do. You were going to be doing some reconstruction surgery no matter what."

"A doctor would do some research before it began cutting."

"And now the robots will too."

"You expect me to congratulate you on that?"

"I don't care. I want us to have a collegial, mutually supportive relationship," Treos continued, "but I will be satisfied if you stay out of my way while I finish my research."

McCoy scowled scornfully. "I am not done with this Teos. I do not want to have this out in front of so many people, but I am filling out every complaint I can against you. I have already sent off a letter of concern to headquarters."

"Fine, but until we hear back from them my research is still priority one and for the duration I am still in charge of it." Treos smiled kindly and added, "To show you how seriously I want to be a team player, I have been trying to help out with work that isn't useful to me. I have some news for you."

"What is that?" McCoy asked without much interest.

"While I was out at the desk, one of your patients bounced back. Some guy named Meyer? His hand is bothering him. Oh, and Mr. Goj woke up so I discharged him."

McCoy jumped up. "You discharged Goj while Meyer was in the waiting area? You are an idiot Treos."

"What now?" asked Treos. "How can that possibly be a problem?"

"Chapel," McCoy yelled, "Call security. We are going to need a show of force in admitting. Tell Giotto he probably needs to come in person." Then he charged from behind the desk and ran to the admitting area. Treos trailed behind him, still talking.

It was as he had feared. Goj and Meyer were a punching, angry ball. They separated only long enough to grab furniture to hit each other with before grabbing each other again and rolling on the floor. McCoy yelled, "Knock it off." The fight didn't even slow down.

Treos tried to get behind and grab either of the two men. They shook him off easily.

"Stay back Treos, you're only going to get hurt." McCoy said. Meyer was using his brace to pound on the top of Goj's head, while Goj kicked at Meyer's legs. The captain ran into the room. McCoy put out a restraining hand and said, "Don't Jim, if either one of them accidentally hit you Giotto would court martial them. Security is on the way, just let them handle it."

The captain looked a little disappointed, but nodded, and stepped back to watch. Goj was bleeding again and Meyer's brace was disintegrating. The fight slowed down as the men got tired, the punches, though less frequent, were better placed. The grunts and thuds were accompanied by gasps from the members of the yeomen's corps, now assembled around the door and watching the fight.

The turbolift opened and six huge security guards sprinted out, followed closely by Lieutenant Commander Giotto. He took two steps into the room and bellowed, "Attention!" Both combatants froze and then jumped to attention.

"Enough." barked Giotto. You are both going to the brig and then on report."

"I am going to need to look at their injuries first." McCoy said.

"How do you want to do this?" Giotto said.

"I'll take both, but let's not put them in the same room." McCoy said.

"Fine, I want two on each of these idiots the whole time they are under the doctor's care. The minute McCoy clears them bring them down to the brig. Mac, Rudolph, you two fix this mess. Lie, Hendorff, escort Mr. Goj to an exam room. Puj, Logan, you take Meyer. Goj, Meyer, you better hope the doctor says you're sick, cause once he okays it, I am going to make you sorry."

Two of the red shirted young men grabbed an unprotesting Meyer. McCoy pulled some curtains and made an exam room. He sent Goj and two more officers to the back of the room with instructions to do the same. The last two security men began to collect the displaced furniture and return it to the proper place.

McCoy looked around the packed admitting area. He said, "I got Meyers. Treos, make yourself useful, check on Mr. Goj. If you insist on using those toys of yours you better double check their diagnoses and plans. I am holding you personally responsible for anything that happens. Miss Chapel, why don't you go with him and prevent him from doing anything too stupid. I am down the hall, call me if he suggests anything even remotely invasive. Brown, you are with me. The rest of you, finish the physicals, and do it quietly." He stomped off down the hall, already thinking what he would need to do for Meyer.

2020  
McCoy let his office door seal behind him. He took a look into the exam rooms, there was one yeoman running on the exercise track, and one getting some blood work done. They both smiled and waved at him. The nurse working the room looked over his shoulder, saw McCoy and smiled too. McCoy grunted and started to the turbolift.

He could have left earlier, but had gone to the lab to check for progress on the vaccine. He had started talking with one of the chemists, Lieutenant Lariss. She was an amazing scientist. Although she had agreed with Chapel that it was not necessary, she had already formulated a new vaccine that worked in simulation. She would try more tests tomorrow, and perhaps give it to Chekov in the evening. It had been fascinating to hear explain her work. Sometimes McCoy missed research, seeing problems fixed appealed to him, that was why he had become a surgeon.

The lift doors opened and Jim stepped out. He grinned and said, "Hey Bones, I was looking for you. I stopped by your quarters, you weren't there."

"No captain, I was not there."

"Want to get a beer?"

"I'll get a bourbon, you can get a beer."

"Good enough, officer's club?"

They found seats at the bar. The crew members around them greeted them politely, and then drifted away. The crew tended to give Jim privacy. McCoy had worried about that at first. Jim was still young, and he was very personable. At the academy, he had always been the life of every party. He worried that Jim found command isolating, a captain inherently had no peers aboard a ship. Jim seemed to be flourishing in his role, but McCoy still wasn't sure it was good for him. Whenever Jim appeared like this, all alone and asking McCoy to join him, he went.

Jim seldom had anything important to say on these little jaunts, he usually preferred to sip his drink and listen. McCoy always figured what the captain really wanted was the chance to pretend he was still a guy who could walk into a bar and do whatever he wanted.

Jim was easy to talk to, he was interested in everything. He asked about McCoy's day and listened carefully to an explanation of Lariss' research. She had been unable to find a good reason for the robot's refusal to inoculate Chekov. She thought it was possible its programming had looked for common components of the drugs on his intolerance list, and finding none, had deduced he was allergic to the base used for all hypos.

"So now he can't have any hypos? Why didn't I think of that! How do I go about developing one of these allergies? It can't be from exposure, I've had way more shots than him." said Jim.

"You've had more hypos than anyone, probably more than anyone in the history of hypos. And he can have them, it isn't a real allergy. Treos's idiot machines made a mistake. Another mistake, so that's two in one day. I believe that means I can send off another comm to headquarters." McCoy took a big drink and added, "If you don't want to get hypos stop getting hurt."

The captain slammed his beer to the table and said, "Bones! That's it, I will stop getting hurt. I have been wondering how I could spend less time with doctors for years and you clear it up in one sentence, stop getting hurt. You are a genius Dr. McCoy."

"You are a smart-ass Captain Kirk."

"I have a plan! I will instruct my yeoman to remind me every morning not to get hurt. Maybe I will have a little sign hung in the transporter room. I can't believe you've solved this problem for me."

"I can't believe we are having this discussion."

"I can, what else are we going to discuss? We've got a new mission, but if I try to talk about it you will just interrupt me to mention how dangerous absolutely everything even remotely interesting about it is."

"If you considered these things for yourself I wouldn't need to mention them. And you never listen anyway."

"I listen and disregard it, because you automatically assume things will be bad without any evidence at all. You view the whole universe through your sick bay goggles. You got no perspective Bones."

The comment stung. McCoy opened his mouth to object, but he captain wasn't even looking at him. He was watching a table of young women from security. Their skirts were hitched up and their legs looked very long. Jim was clearly more interested in them than the conversation. He had sounded like he was still teasing. Ordinarily McCoy might have even laughed, but coming so soon after Christine's criticism, he couldn't see any humor in it.

"I don't have perspective? It never ceases to surprise me the number of people who feel certain they understand how best to provide health care to the entire crew even though they have never done it."

The captain turned back to him. "Huh?" he said.

"Never mind, I" McCoy was embarrassed at his outburst, but still a little hurt. He finished his shot and set his glass down. "I have surgery in the morning Jim, I should probably get some sleep."

"Are you sure you are okay Bones?" Jim looked confused. He still had half his beer left, but McCoy wanted to be alone and think.

"I'm good Jim," He tapped the half full glass and continued, "you know what, you should take this over to that table. I bet you would enjoy it more with some company."

The captain looked at the young women in red sharing the table by the door. "Yeah, I guess, if you're sure," he said.

"I'm sure." He signed his name on his tab. Jim played with his glass but didn't move. Still angry, but now feeling guilty too, McCoy left the bar.


	4. Chapter 4

Thursday

0900  
Christine sat and enjoyed the first cup of coffee of her day. Anabelle Sanchez and Xetic, two of the gamma shift nurses, sat with her. They had volunteered to stay after their shift ended and help with a rush of yeomen wanting to do their physicals at shift change. While they had worked, she rounded with Dr. M'Benga, and now he and Leonard were just starting Jamen's surgery. She had sent Brown in to prepare the surgery suite and then stay to assist. She was having two of their new grads watch. The other newbie she had sent off to wait in recovery, and she hoped to have time to finish one whole mug before the surgery finished and Leonard started bellowing that he needed assistance.

"Goj left this morning about 0100. His teeth seem to have relinked nicely. I tried to get the guards to let him sleep the night here, but they said no. I have to say, Mr. Goj seemed quite comfortable with their decision. I don't think he is at all sorry about the fight." Annabelle said thoughtfully. She was a sturdy, middle aged woman who had been recalled to active duty after Nero. She was very beloved on the ship, everyone's aunt. Before being assigned to the Enterprise, she had been the charge nurse on night shift at the Starfleet hospital in San Francisco where Christine had trained. When she had been a student Christine had been impressed by Sanchez's empathy. Now, she sometimes avoided her.

Xetic said, "Nor is Mr. Meyer, and he should be, as he is the much more severely hurt of the two. He continues in bed 2 in the ward. His guards stood over him all night, even while he slept. I offered them blankets and told them to sit down. Mr. Meyer is no danger to any of us surely. But they refused. I do not understand Mr. Meyer or Mr. Goj."

"Each is mad at the other for causing injury to the first." Annabelle explained.

"Yes, but I do not understand why as adults they continue to engage in adolescent displays." Xetic added. He was Zhun, and an excellent nurse, although many species found his insectoid appearance off putting at first.

"In my experience, some beings are never really finished being adolescents." Christine said. She had been going to say some males were never finished being adolescents but had remembered that Xetic was male, and didn't wanted to sound rude.

The doors to the unit opened. Christine saw her friend Nyota Uhura in the doorway. She said, "I have a patient for you."

"Where?" asked Christine. Nyota looked behind her, shook her head angrily and then stepped back into the passageway.

Christine heard Nyota say, "Come on, this isn't going to go away because you stall." Then she said, "you know you have no choice."

She walked back into the unit, pulling with her a slim figure in a gold shirt.

"I think I'm sick." said Ensign Chekov from the door. He looked flushed and sounded hoarse.

"Of course you are." Christine said, setting down her coffee.

"Oh, you sure are. Well never mind, you just come on back with me." said Annabelle, jumping up and hurrying around the desk. She led an unwilling looking Chekov towards the exam rooms.

"I am sorry Miss Chapel." he called over his shoulder.

"She doesn't care sweetie, we are all just sorry you're sick again." Annabelle said.

"Not as sorry as me," said Chekov.

"Believe me, I am far sorrier." Christine said quietly. Xetic waved his feelers in a show of support for her concern. Christine knew she should feel embarrassed, he had misunderstood her meaning. But it was frustrating. Chekov was right on time for developing the flu. Leonard was going to have a fit. He was inexplicably fond of the sickly little ensign. Every time he saw Chekov he would get mad again. He would be short and prickly with everyone. And he would blame Treos, which meant more time spent listening to arguments between the two of them. Her sympathies might have been with Leonard, but it didn't really matter. The doctors arguing would make the staff nervous. Everyone would be walking on eggshells and there would probably be sick calls. In addition, contagious illness meant extra work and she didn't need a distracted, cranky CMO.

As Xetic called up the ensign's file, Nyota said, "He was maybe a little quiet at shift change, but nothing major. I was having him check some figures for me up on the bridge and he started shaking like he had malaria. He insists he's fine, but he's not. Captain Kirk sent him down here and then told me to make sure he made it. Probably a good idea, he really didn't want to come. What do you think is wrong with him?"

"If I had to guess I would probably say the flu." said Christine.

"Poor Pasha. But he couldn't have gotten it on Ertruck?"

"If it is the flu, then he got it on Ertruck."

"He didn't have the shot, but Dr. McCoy said we weren't really at much risk. I got the vaccine, so I should be fine, right?"

"That is how it is supposed to work."

"I am trying not to feel too lucky, but I do. He has the worst luck with his health. Tell him I will try to come back to check on him soon okay? I have to get back to work now, it is a busy, busy day. Previously unknown sound symbols don't translate themselves." Nyota ducked out the door as quickly as she had come.

"I think I will wait until after Jamen's surgery to mention this to Leonard." Christine said, picking up her cup for one last swig.

10:00  
McCoy didn't consider reconstructive surgery to be his strength, but there had been plenty of tissue to work with and he felt fairly confident Jamen would be pleased with the results. M'Benga, who he cared about, and Treos, who he did not, had both been in the surgery suite and had both been very complimentary. It gave him some satisfaction and lessened finally, the guilt he felt over not automatically suspecting the worst of Treos's robots. After standing around recovery watching Jamen sleep comfortably and giving Brown several completely unnecessary instructions, he went to check on Meyers, who had damaged the repairs to his hand during the fight.

Treos skipped behind him, chatting about McCoy's technique, the plans he had for the unit, and what research was leading to for the next generation of tissue regenerators. McCoy ignored him and went to Meyer's bed. Meyer waved to him with his good hand.

"Can you wiggle the other one?" McCoy asked. Meyers demonstrated that he could.

"Well congratulations. You've earned yourself at least another shift with your arm in that stasis field. What goes through your head Meyers? Don't you care that you could lose the use of that hand if you aren't careful?"

"He started it sir." said Meyer. Both of his guards, big men dressed in red, smiled.

"It isn't funny." McCoy snapped. He started to leave, but turned back to ask, "Did they order you two some breakfast?"

"We ate before we came on duty sir." one of the red shirts replied. McCoy had seen him many times before, but couldn't call to mind his name. McCoy wondered, Henderson? Halendort? Something like that.

"Thanks anyway." said the other.

"Well sit down, it makes me nervous to see you standing there like that." McCoy said.

Thank you, sir, Mr. Giotto said to stand." the two young men said together.

"Oh, Well I say to sit, but I suppose you always do just what Mr. Giotto says."

"Sir, yes sir." the security guards and Meyer said together. The guards shifted to full attention as they spoke and Meyer raised his good hand as if he were giving a cheer. The three of them smiled at each other as if they were sharing some private joke.

McCoy turned away in disgust.

"That's the kind of esprit de corps I wish we could have Leonard." Treos said.

"I am not really the team player type John." McCoy muttered.

"Obviously. My research is entirely designed to make your life and work easier and you fight me every step of the way as if you would like to see it fail. If you aren't interested in improving your own lot in life you should think at least of the others who work here. They would, I am sure, very much prefer to have less of their lives spent caring for disease."

"They don't care for diseases John, they care for," Leonard broke off and stared at the bed closest to the door. Sanchez was standing before it, holding up a gown for a patient who had both arms wrapped around his gold shirt and was shaking his head, apparently refusing to remove it. "Oh, for crying out loud." McCoy said and stomped off. Treos followed.

"Hello doctor!" said Sanchez, all smiles despite it now being several hours past shift change. "Look who's back to see us!"

"I'm sorry Dr. McCoy." Chekov said nervously.

"What the hell's wrong with him now?" asked McCoy looking up at the incomplete readouts above the bed.

"Well, we aren't sure yet, his admission work isn't finished. Pavel would really prefer to return to his room but we were just discussing how you would probably prefer he stay."

"I will come for all the shots, I will do what you say, I just don't want to be here again." Chekov whined. He was short of breath and very flushed.

"His temperature is over 38," Sanchez said, "and his cough sounds horrible."

"Please?" asked Chekov.

"No. Get in the gown. You don't want to be in sick bay, stop getting sick. Sanchez, you're off duty. Have someone else finish admitting him."

"Thank you, Dr. McCoy, but I will feel better once I know the little dear is tucked in nice and cozy." Chekov gave McCoy a desperate look. He hated being fussed over. Under other circumstances McCoy might have helped him out, or perhaps enjoyed watching, but today he was too angry.

"Suit yourself." McCoy said. "Tell the lab them to run a complete viral assay on every fluid he possesses. Tell them I suspect he has an influenza virus recently implicated in an outbreak on Ertruck. They can look up the specifics. We need to know how contagious he is. Once they get specimens start a wide spectrum virucide. He needs to be isolated, in the meantime, give him something for the fever. Bring him some water, he doesn't want ice in it. And you," he said to Chekov, "if you don't want me to stick lines in you, stay hydrated."

"Hey, is this the guy from the Ertruck mission? The flu exposure?" asked Treos, reaching for Sanchez's PADD. McCoy ignored him.

"You said I wouldn't get sick." Chekov said sulkily.

McCoy snorted and said, "Oh I never said that. I might have said you shouldn't get sick. But experience has taught me that if it is possible to get sick you will do it. Sanchez, tell them not to bring Jamen into the ward, keep him in recovery."

Chekov angrily pulled off his uniform top and flung it to the side. The effort made him start to cough, a thick congested sound that left him wheezing. Sanchez patted his shoulder and cooed encouragement.

"Cover your mouth." said McCoy. "Sanchez, start him on breathing treatments, whatever he had last time, one every four hours. Call me when the lab work is finished."

Sanchez nodded and then said, "You know doctor, this may get a little complicated. He can't go into isolation until we call someone in to man it, and he can't stay here. There are already maybe six yeomen in the admission area. We are anticipating finishing the physicals today."

"Oh great." said McCoy and Chekov at the same time.

"New plan," McCoy said. "Take Chekov to the ward. Put him at the opposite end of the room from Meyer and Gouyen until we can staff an isolation unit pull the curtains around his bed. They need to be cared for by separate nurses. Admit nobody else with open wounds to the ward, because until we hear otherwise, Chekov is officially contagious.

"No, don't worry! I have a great idea! I will take care of everything." Treos said. He started towards the admit area, but stopped and looked back. He said, "I can't believe we have a flu. My luck is finally changing!"

1300  
Treos spent an hour on the main computer, complicating the admission of two ensigns from engineering with mild chemical burns acquired when they failed to use the correct tools while changing a battery. After he finished on the computer he tinkered happily with his robots until a yeoman arrived from supply with an antigrav sled laden with odd looking packages. He took it into the ward immediately. McCoy, busy aligning three toes broken in a jump from a top bunk, watched him without commenting.

He heard odd noises from the ward for the next hour, but ignored them, as he could not honestly complain that Treos's work was any noisier than the chatter, laughter and cheers coming from the physicals in the exam room. And all of it made it a little easier not to have to listen to the lieutenant whose foot he was working on explain again how the injury was not as stupid as it appeared, and could have happened to anyone.

With Treos distracted, McCoy decided to spend some time on the floor. He immunized Gouyen, who still had not had another arrhythmia. McCoy agreed to send him to his room, on restricted duty and wearing a cardiac monitor until they would do a complete workup on Monday. Mr. Gouyen was pleased but worried that he would be bored. McCoy considered how very close the young man had come to death. He told him to read some books.

He checked on Meyer, whose arm looked good and who continued unrepentant. He checked on Jamen, still dozing. McCoy thought it was most likely his work would be left alone if young man was well medicated. He discharged the burned ensigns with instructions to stop in tomorrow. He was just starting to sign physicals when Treos appeared.

"I am finished! We have to call a care conference."

"What?" asked McCoy. "What could there possibly be left in the universe that you haven't said already?"

"Leonard, we can't waste any more time. I can't take a chance on the flu recovering before I get to collect some data. I am trying to follow the restrictions you set up for me, so let's get this care conference on the road. This is science."

1310  
"Hello Ensign Pavel Chekov, I am very sorry you are ill, but as always, pleased to see you. You know the routine!" Lariss said. Chekov smiled wanly and stuck out his arm. Lariss opened her kit and went to work.

He turned his head away and grimaced. He said, "I am glad it's you Miss Lariss."

"Oh, that's nice of you to say, here's a little poke. That's good, another one, hold still," Lariss said. She did most of the specimen collection for the lab. Most analysis was done externally, through sensors on the skin, but some tests still required actual samples. She had a talent for the work, nerves in her facial pits allowed her to sense blood moving in other's vessels. It was nice to get out of the lab occasionally and she liked to chat with the patients, but she really did enjoy the ensign. If he wasn't too ill he asked thoughtful questions. And she appreciated that he didn't complain when she stuck him. Most humans did, which was silly, because their veins were close to the surface and their ridiculously soft skin was easily penetrated. He was always a good patient. He didn't watch, but he didn't whine, and she appreciated that.

His warm blood filled her kit. Suddenly she sensed his blood pressure shoot up, he choked and grabbed at her trabecula with his right hand. She used her first tentacle to help him sit up as she pulled the kit back. Coughs wracked his body. She held the half full kit in her second tentacle and sympathetically stroked his back gently with her third. Eventually he collapsed back on the bed and lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. She sensed for his pulse, his heart was slowing to its normal rate, he was fine.

"Sorry," he wheezed.

"Not a problem, I appreciate the warning. That sounds bad, do you wish me to call for the nurse?" Lariss asked. He gave her a distressed look and shook his head.

"Never do I wish for the nurse," he said.

She laughed but when she looked at her kit she said, "Bad news Ensign Pavel Chekov, I wasn't quite finished, I shall have to stick you again." He shrugged and turned his arm toward her.

"Why so much?" He asked.

"I am drawing for all the usual tests, and then a few more. We are looking for vectors of infection, and that takes lots of blood," she said, watching the unit carefully. "We will also need urine and sputum and maybe a skin swab." She had thought he would find the information interesting but his expression implied that he did not. She said, "chances are good that we will find what we need and will not need to do anything more invasive." To her surprise, he looked even less happy.

"There are more invasive things than this?" he asked incredulously.

She laughed again. He really was most amusing. "Oh many, many things," she said.

"Great," he murmured.

She continued, "The information we received from Ertruck said this illness was spread almost entirely through sexual contact. Obviously, that was incorrect, so we need to try and discover how you acquired this illness."

Chekov frowned and said, "What do you mean obviously? I already told Dr. Treos I did. Why does everyone refuse to believe it's even a possibility? It is so rude."

Lariss paused while putting her kit away. "You did what?"

"I had sex on Ertruck."

"You really did?"

He looked at her with wide eyes and said, "Yes I really did. Several times. She asked me to. Her boyfriend is Ertruckian and thinks fidelity is foolish. She wanted to try to live as he does. I was surprised when she asked me to assist her, but I thought, why not, I am here to have adventures."

"I had not realized, I had heard the dinner was ceremonial. Well, boldly go ensign." Lariss said.

"Yes, but the only people that believe that I did are mad at me. Hikaru says I should never let someone use me this way. I say people use me all the time to do things I have no interest in, this I wanted to do." He added hopefully, "I always try to be helpful Miss Lariss."

"That is commendable ensign,"

The boy waited a few seconds and then asked quietly, "Is it really that impossible to believe?"

Lariss was surprised. He seemed worried. She said, "It is not even difficult to believe. You are human, correct?" He nodded. She continued, "If I remember correctly my physiology professor stated that humans have no specific seasons and are in fact both capable and interested in frequent efforts to reproduce. That is also correct?"

He smiled and said, "sort of."

"It sounds very inconvenient," she mused.

"You have no idea."

"Well, I suppose each species adapts to their own reality. You are I believe sexually mature?"

She had been seriously seeking information, but he smiled and asked, "How can you doubt it, I mean look at me, who wouldn't want to be with this?" He gestured at his skinny body dwarfed by the huge gown and wiggled his toes.

She was pleased he seemed happier and wanted to encourage him. She thought she remembered a joke that would be appropriate and said, "To tell the truth, I am inspired to sexual activity right now."

She was gratified by one of his wide smiles. "Sure you are Miss Lariss, I have that effect, on many, many beings." he said.

"There is nothing more desirable than a bony, sweaty human in my mind," she said. They both laughed, but then he started to cough again. She helped him sit up, stroked his shoulders with her tentacles and waited with him until it passed.

"Did you tell Dr. Treos?" she asked. He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "About having sex, did you tell Dr. Treos?"

He nodded. She asked again, "You told Dr. Treos, 'I had sex on Ertruck.'?"

"Not in those exact words, because that makes it sound like some military operation I completed. I want to be respectful. She was nice and it was fun. But yes, he made me fill out a questionnaire, and in it, I did tell him."

She looked at her kit full of blood. "Well then, I wonder why we have to do this?"

"No one ever listens to me Miss Lariss," he said sadly, "and if they accidentally do, they don't believe me."

15:00  
They met in Leonard's office. It was crowded, but there was no other place they could speak that wasn't occupied by patients, yeomen, nurses, PAs, or robots. The goal was to develop a plan to deal with the outbreak of a contagious disease on the starship. They would listen politely and offer ideas in a thoughtful manner until they reached a consensus. Or they would have on some other ship. Christine did not think the process would be as smooth on the Enterprise.

In an effort to keep things from disintegrating into two hours of Leonard shouting 'No' while Treos shouted "Yes" Christine called the other physicians and asked them to join the group. The beta shift physician, Dr. Patel, came but Dr. M'Benga said he would support whatever decision the group reached and went back to his bunk. Of the two, she would have preferred M'Benga, whom she knew Leonard respected, but he had worked all night and then stayed to support Jamen through his surgery. Christine knew he deserved a break.

Treos explained that he had set up one unit of his mobile hospital facility right in the middle of the Enterprise's patient care area. He wanted to transfer Chekov into it and have the patient care units provide for him. He promised that he would personally oversee every action the units took. He kept talking about methods of avoiding cross contamination and the need to control the spread of the illness.

"He's not a doctor, he's an epidemiologist." Leonard grumbled. He had no interest in robots or the latest viral containment studies. He did not like the enthusiasm Treos displayed for finally having a test subject. He used the words, 'over my dead body,' several times, which caused Christine to sigh. Dr. Patel was a serious young woman who was enduring active duty until she could return to academia. She hated histrionics. Christine felt certain every word Leonard said tipped the scale further in Treos' favor.

Christine hoped none of the doctors would ask for her opinion. Leonard would be angry to hear her say she was not entirely opposed to the plan. She doubted it would work well. She felt certain this particular ensign would inevitably eventually require more care than the robots could provide. But in the short term she found the prospect of the robots contained inside the unit while their creator was kept busy collecting data very appealing. She began calculating in her head how a gigantic balloon set in the middle of the ward would affect staffing.

Just as Christine had known she would, Patel eventually interrupted Leonard's rant to say, "Doctor McCoy, it seems to me Dr. Treos is asking nothing extraordinary. You have sent a communique to headquarters asking for permission to end his work, but you have not yet had a response. So, in the meantime our orders stand and we must assist him in his research. He feels this is a perfect opportunity to test his unit. I don't see any danger, there were no deaths to humans reported on Ertruck and were the ensign's condition to worsen we could always begin a more conventional treatment."

"Or we could start with conventional treatment." McCoy sputtered. "It has always worked fine before."

Patel said, "He has tried to comply with every restriction you have given him. I see no reason to assume he will not continue to work with the medical staff. We all agree that his robots require supervision, but that does not mean they cannot provide medical care. Since you are unwilling to do so I will work with Dr. Treos and supervise his work."

McCoy replied, "I prefer to have direct control over my unit."

"I know." Patel said drily.

Christine looked at Patel speculatively. Leonard closely supervised all the new staff members. None of them liked it, but Patel had deeply resented it. He was not reserved about sharing his suggestions, and if he caught them in even a small mistake he watched them even more attentively. He had granted Patel the right to work completely independently only recently. She wondered if Patel was still resentful of Leonard. Maybe she should have tried harder to get M'Benga in.

Patel continued, "I believe it might be better to focus your attention on a second and larger round of immunizations. It appears the information we received about the illness requiring intimate physical contact to spread is incorrect. Therefore, we have to assume the ensign has exposed most of the ship. Supervising immunizations for the crew is, I believe, a better use of the time of CMO of a starship than is direct patient care."

'Oh yes, she is still mad," thought Christine. 'She would support Treos doing anything if it bothered Leonard.'

There was a little more discussion. Leonard sputtered, but Patel was unmoved. On a vote of 2 to 1 the medical staff formally agreed that Ensign Chekov should be the first patient admitted to the mobile hospital facility and would be cared for by the PCUs. Leonard could have overridden the vote, but it would have been unusual to do so. Treos beamed, McCoy scowled. Christine left to tell the lab to start making hundreds of doses of vaccine.

As the doctors left the meeting room Leonard stormed out to the desk.

"What was that about?" he snapped.

"What was what about?" she asked coolly, not looking up from her screen.

"Every time I tried to object to some fool thing Treos said you punched my leg. Why didn't you want me to talk?"

Christine frowned and said, "I wasn't aware I was doing that. I am sorry. But Leonard, you weren't going to win this one and you will speak with more authority next time if you don't appear to be purposely blocking him at every turn."

"I am the CMO. I have final say."

She sighed and then replied, "You are the CMO on a Starfleet vessel. Starfleet has the ultimate say. Doctor Patel is correct, at this point they are still saying we have to let Dr. Treos do his research. It isn't what we are used to, but he's on the Enterprise to test the efficacy of his work. This is the perfect scenario for him. There's only the one case, and the patient is young and strong. It won't be dangerous for Chekov and Dr. Treos can gather some data he can use to evaluate his plan. I know it is difficult it is for you to share Leonard, but you simply can't accept responsibility for every medical decision for everybody."

Leonard snorted and said, "Christine, he is incompetent. Legally I am responsible for every stupid thing he does. I would like a little oversight."

"Your orders make it clear that you are not legally responsible for him, the office of the surgeon general" Christine began. The doctor interrupted her.

"Fine, morally I feel responsible. I know the man's an idiot," he said. "I can't let him take care of anyone, particularly not a young, vulnerable crew member."

She began to get angry. Sometimes Leonard seemed to believe he was the only member of the medical division to care about the patients. She heard herself say, "This isn't just about Treos, Leonard. It's not even really about Chekov. You fill your entire life with this unit. You say you have to, I say you want to. Let's see who's right. Patel is offering to manage this case. She is willing to take this off your plate Leonard. She is perfectly capable. Do you think you can?"

"What do you mean do I think I can?"

Christine paused and then spoke carefully. "I am beginning to think you hate him so much you shouldn't ever supervise Dr. Treos. But this is bigger than that. I am not sure you are capable of stepping back and letting anyone else be in charge of anything."

"Don't be ridiculous Christine."

"Leonard, I have caught you checking the nursing schedules, which are in no way your responsibility."

"I told you, I was trying to put names to faces."

"And I told you that you are a very poor liar. Let Dr. Patel be the attending for Chekov. That means she makes the decisions, and you don't get to stand there and second guess her and yell at him. You stay out of it. You have plenty of work that only the CMO can do. Concentrate on that for a while. If you can."

"I can, I just don't want to. I refuse to be responsible for people without seeing that they are doing the right thing."

"You always say you have a wonderful staff, but you treat them like they are medical students and you are the professor. You make people feel incompetent Leonard. It is not respectful."

"Not respectful? The problem people have with me is that I don't sugar coat things. I am honest, I don't give people praise they don't deserve and I don't ask the staff to meet my emotional needs. I think it very respectful to expect them to do competent work."

"You lost this one Leonard. If you really respect your staff act like it. Support the decision."

Leonard narrowed his eyes and looked at her for a few seconds. When he spoke again his voice was controlled. "Thank you, Miss Chapel," he said. "I had no idea you felt so strongly on this matter. I will consider what you say carefully. In the meantime, I will respect the recommendations of the medical staff and will not comment on this case unless asked to do so." He turned to the desk and began to arrange styluses in a cup.

She had never expected him to agree so easily, and felt more surprised than victorious. She cleared her throat. "Thank you, Leonard," she said. "I hope you understand that I have only the highest regard for your skills and I truthfully believe this will be for the good of the unit."

"The good of the unit?" he said. "We don't work for the good of the unit Christine. Didn't you notice that Treos talked a lot about what he needs, and the needs of the community and the needs of science. But not once did he mention what Chekov needs. Pavel is the patient Christine, he's the sick one. I don't want anyone on this ship cared for by someone who doesn't understand that."

She couldn't help reaching out to touch his hand. "I know Leonard. But we will take care of him. I promise." She sighed, and wondered why it was so impossible for him to understand that if he had only said that in the first place, the meeting would probably have gone the other way.

1600  
"Leonard, I sense you are unhappy about this." Treos said. They were standing in front of one pod from his mobile facility. The false bottom had taken two technicians from engineering several hours to set up, but the rest of the unit had gone up quickly. Treos was directing the robots in arranging the furnishings, then he would need to test the connections. After that it would be ready for patients. Treos was very happy, he hummed to himself and invited passersby to come and watch.

"Unhappy doesn't begin to describe it Treos."

"I anticipated this sort of reaction from the staff Leonard. It surprises me in a professional like yourself, but I want you to know I understand and support you. Well, I don't support your attitude, but I support your sense of self."

McCoy looked at his colleague, completely at a loss for words.

Treos placed his hand on McCoy's shoulder. He said, "This is a time of great change for you, it threatens everything on which you have based your entire life upon. How can it not be frightening? I want to assure you, know that your knowledge base will still be valuable, there will still be important work for you to do, and really, when you aren't called to constant interactions with patients, you will be free to use that knowledge even more."

"You are serious aren't you?"

"Yes, I am serious, I am completely serious. I am creating the future, and changing the destinies of care providers like you. The mobile hospital facility units will eliminate your career."

"I don't think that they will."

"I understand it must be painful to see yourself become obsolete."

"Treos, it bothers me that I am connected even tangentially with this fiasco, and that I have to stand here and wait for this experiment to fail. I am okay with my destiny."

"I just want you to know I understand and don't take your snide comments and lack of enthusiasm personally."

"Take them personally John, they are my gift to you."

"Leonard, that is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. If you were really so confident that my work would fail you would stand back and let it happen. You are afraid for yourself. I just want you to know I acknowledge it and understand. I anticipate the nurses will have similar feelings as they watch my work and realize their own obsolescence."

"You haven't said anything like that to them?"

"No, no. It is inevitable that they will realize it, but it will take longer. I haven't talked so frankly to any of the other physicians either. You are obviously a sensitive and well educated professional Leonard, it is no wonder you were the first."

"My obnoxiousness makes you realize I am sensitive and well educated."

"You said that, I didn't. Again, I am just acknowledging your pain."

"You know what causes me pain? That I am surrounded by arrogance. You want to make a fool of yourself, and Christine wants me to stay out of it, Patel wants independence that she has never before shown interest in, and you've managed to convince yourself that the way I would show you I think this is stupid is to let you fail. I say fine. You all get your way. Do what you want. I am done reasoning with any of you. Until you screw up Treos. And let me be clear, you will. As soon as you do, orders or not, I am grinding the future of healthcare to a stop."

"We will see," Treos said placatingly.

"You'll see," McCoy corrected.

1715  
The unit took up the space usually occupied by three beds in the ward. Its walls were rounded and a glowed a faintly iridescent pink. The doorway led to small separate chamber within the unit. The doors on either end of the chamber were made of the same translucent material as the rest of the unit, but once closed they sealed tightly. Anyone entering or leaving the unit had to stand in the smaller chamber and wait for someone outside to open the door.

Inside it was a little spartan hospital. There was a bio bed. There was a supply area against the far wall, with a replicator and a tiny transporter that could bring up supplies quickly in an emergency. There was a waste receptacle and a charging base for the patient care units. The two robots floated by the bed, waiting. The bed had no monitor. When asked, Treos explained it didn't need one. The bed fed any data it collected directly to the robots. McCoy gritted his teeth, and asked Patel in a strained voice if she thought maybe it might be a good idea to get a monitor added so that she would be able to evaluate the patient too. She didn't look pleased but agreed. Chapel called engineering to come up and add a remote screen next to the comm.

Christine stood between Leonard and Patel and listened to Treos explain the treatment plan to the ensign. She wondered if Treos was aware that every nurse on the unit was hiding behind a doorway or staying at the desk, trying hear the discussion.

Chekov looked at the unit and said, "I am not going in that fishbowl." He looked sweet and pliable but he could be very stubborn; Christine thought that was probably one of the reasons Leonard liked him so much.

Treos patted him on the back and said heartily, "You'll find it is hardly different than being cared for on the floor. This is science ensign, and you'll be playing an important part in developing a new life saving technology."

Chekov crossed his arms defiantly over his chest and said, "I do not wish to help develop technology. I want to be well. I will go to a regular isolation unit. I've been there before and it does not feel so much like you are on display. The nurses can come in if they suit up, so there are people to talk to."

Leonard looked as proud as if his first born had taken its first steps but didn't say anything. Christine appreciated his self-control. She hoped he had been convinced by her arguments, and was turning over a new, more managerial leaf, but thought it was probably more likely he had decided the fastest way to end this was to allow Treos to fail publicly.

Treos said, "Come on ensign, the PCUs are waiting."

Chekov didn't bother to answer, just shook his head.

Sounding less jovial Treos said, "We need to get to work. This is science and I have data to collect."

"No." Chekov said.

"I am ordering you to get in the unit."

"You are not an officer." Chekov said, arms still crossed.

"I am a doctor," Treos said angrily. "I know what is best for you in this situation."

"I have no obligation to obey doctors."

"Fine," said Treos. He looked at Patel. "Order him to get in the unit."

Quietly, and in a gentle voice, Patel said, "Ensign Chekov, I am ordering you to comply with Dr. Treos's request."

The ensign looked at her sadly for a few seconds and then said, "Yes sir." He mustered a surprising amount of dignity for an underweight teenager wearing a hospital gown and entered the unit. He flinched when the door sealed behind him but didn't say anything.

Christine could tell by the little flutters of alarm she heard that her nurses were sympathetic to Chekov. She had wondered if Patel realized how unpopular her decision was. Treos, she suspected, didn't care.

"Stand inside the doorway and let the unit scan you. That will set your identity." Treos said into the comm. He looked gloriously happy.

Chekov muttered, "I have an identity," but obediently stood still. Halfway through the scan he started to cough and reached out to the side of the unit for support. The whole chamber moved. The unit beeped and the bio bed display announced that the scan had failed.

Treos said sharply, "We're going to have to restart. It will help a great deal ensign if you hold still."

Chekov stood up straighter. As the scan restarted he muttered to himself in Russian. There must have been a translator built into the unit, because they all heard him say, "This is stupid, I can't even see. I hate everyone."

McCoy smiled broadly, but then frowned and asked, "What does he mean he can't see?"

"There's a little distortion through the walls. He's exaggerating. He'll be fine after he gets used to it." Treos replied. "Mr. Chekov," he continued, "I forgot to mention, the patient care units can have a little trouble with the knots on hospital gowns. I would like you to slip out of your clothes please."

Chekov looked angrily over his shoulder and then stepped through the second doorway into the unit. Treos, sounding a little urgent, said, "the gown Chekov, take off the gown."

The young man replied in Standard, "I am sorry sir, I do not hear you clearly. Perhaps it is the fever, but I cannot make out what you say."

Patel rolled her eyes. Christine glanced at Leonard. He was watching with an eyebrow raised. "Score one for the biologics." Christine said quietly. Leonard actually smiled.

Chekov was notoriously modest. They usually only got him into a gown if he was unconscious when he arrived, or if like today, he had not anticipated staying. Leonard generally allowed him to wear his own pajamas while he was on the unit. Christine had always considered that an unfortunate precedent, but it was well established at this point. She felt certain that to win this battle the researcher would have had to have started while he still had physical access to the ensign. As if to illustrate her thoughts, Treos repeated his request, and Chekov again ignored him. He shuffled over to the bed, sat on it and coughed a while before laying down and curling into an exhausted looking ball.

"Patel," began Treos, but the young woman shook her head.

"I will not be ordering him to accommodate your clothing request Dr. Treos. We do not require that of any other patients. I understood you wished to see your PCUs work in a realistic environment."

'Good argument Aparna, he won't be able to answer that one,'' thought Christine.

Treos tried one last time, "Ensign Chekov, the PCUs will have a much easier time caring for you if you take off your clothes."

Chekov closed his eyes and murmured to himself in Russian. The translated voice said, "You are a horse's ass, and I wish you would shut up."

McCoy laughed and even Patel smiled. Christine leaned into the comm and called, "Dr. Treos, I am not sure the ensign can hear you clearly. I wonder if he is aware how clearly we can hear him."

Chekov grimaced, and reaching out, carefully tucked his gown beneath himself before pulling the single blanket up to his neck.

Leonard frowned at the unit. The walls jiggled slightly as the air whooshed over filters, the power sources hummed constantly, and it was beginning to make the entire unit smell slightly of disinfectant. To distract him from his musings Christine asked, "Do you think it is as noisy inside?"

Leonard grunted, then leaned down to the comm. "Chekov," he asked. "What's the noise level like in there?"

The ensign opened his eyes and looked at the box from where he could hear McCoy's voice with a wounded expression. He didn't reply, but wrapped his blanket more tightly around himself and rolled over to stare at the blank wall.

1530  
Meyer's second skin reattachment was successful. After receiving an inoculation for Ertruckian influenza, he was discharged to the brig, on activity restriction and with instructions to be available for antibiotics and assessment every 0900. He left the unit in the same good spirits he had entered. According to his guards, three days in the brig and a week on report was the usual punishment for fighting on the ship. McCoy was astounded to learn there was a usual punishment for fighting on the ship. Meyer apparently thought it was a fair price to pay for the pleasure of beating Goj. His good-bye wave was enthusiastically returned by the new little nurse that had assisted in his surgery. McCoy noticed that Chapel frowned at the display.

The yeomen had been a presence in the unit all day, but not in numbers approaching those of Wednesday. The corps of yeomen, McCoy reflected, might be perky and annoyingly cheerful, but they were organized and understood timelines. They had so far been the only division to get all their physicals done on time. McCoy felt grateful for their cooperation. He joined in the round of applause the nurses gave them.

"Physicals done for the month, Meyers gone, the unit is getting quiet," he said to Chapel as they walked back to the desk.

"Quiet?" Christine said crankily. "I hadn't noticed quiet. That isolation balloon is never quiet. And while you were locked away in your office Treos talked about what a momentous moment this is pretty much without pause. Do you know he invited tours up from engineering to see that thing? He stood there surrounded by redshirts bragging like no one else has ever built an air filtration system. You should have seen Chekov's face when he woke up and realized half the engineering ensigns were staring at him. I actually felt sorry for the little bugger."

"Well, as long as you weren't being preferential in your sympathy I am sure it was alright Miss Chapel."

"Funny Leonard. Will you please mention to Dr. Treos that visitors are usually required to at least have a passing acquaintance with the patients? And then maybe mention that the medical ward is not open for tours."

"Gee Miss Chapel, I am trying very hard to share my responsibilities and I think talking to Dr. Treos might be something I could let go of. I will ask the nurse manager to do it. She is eager to share my responsibilities."

"Point taken doctor, I will speak to Treos myself." Chapel said, and turning, walked briskly away.

"But it won't help Christine," McCoy called to her back. He walked towards his office and his remaining paperwork. He continued the conversation with himself as he went. "It won't help. You can't keep that guy from talking. That guy can talk about work without actually doing any better than anyone else I ever met. He could have a brilliant career in the surgeon general's office I think."

18:30  
Once Chekov and his germs were confined, Jamen was given a bed on the ward.

"What's that?" he asked when he saw the unit.

"That is Dr. Treos' prototype isolation unit for use during plagues and wars." Trina Shernan explained. She was assisting him to his new bed, walking slowly with him in case he needed any assistance.

"What's it doing here?" he asked.

Trina considered. Diagnoses were supposed to be private, but everyone on the entire ship would know fairly soon, most of them would be getting immunized within the next 36 hours. "Do you know Pavel Chekov?" she asked.

"Sure." said Jamen.

"He's got the flu. They are trying out the unit on him. I suppose it's interesting, Dr. Treos keeps saying we are making medical history. I kind of feel sorry for him though. He's in there by himself with those creepy robots of Dr. Treos."

"The ones that messed up my face? What do they have to do to get turned off? Kill someone?"

"I hope not." Trina said, glancing at the unit.

Jamen took a few more steps and then said, "Wait, did you say he got the flu?"

"Yes, why?"

"The one from Ertruck?" asked Jamen. Trina nodded. "That guy is the luckiest being I ever met. Wait till Reuben hears."

"Lucky? He's really sick Bobo."

"No, I mean, you know how he got it right? I can't wait to get back to work. I got to be the one to tell Reuben. I want to see his face. He is not going to believe this."

"Tell me."

"Let me get settled in first." They had reached his new bed. Gingerly, Jamen sat down and investigated the bed controls. His dinner was waiting for him, she helped him set it up, and got him some water. He patted the bed next to him, encouraging her to sit with him. She laughed and took one of the visitors chairs instead. And then he told her.

1900  
Christine was supposed to be off, but was still working on the schedules for the next day's immunizations when Trina returned to the desk. She ran up excitedly and slid into a chair. "You are not going to believe what Bobo just told me." Shernan said.

Christine frowned but O'Loughlin and Langdon both looked up eagerly.

"Bobo knows how Pav got the virus. It's good."

"Tell all," said Langdon." Christine sighed.

"Before they went to Ertruck he was in the away room with Mr. Reuben and Pav. They were checking the supplies. Mr. Reuben told Pav to read the prep notes for the mission and let them know if they had anything interesting in them. Apparently, there wasn't much, until Pav told them that it said the Ertruckians have some sort of adulthood ceremony and then they don't have any cultural restrictions around sexual activity at all. In fact, all Ertruckians are encouraged to do it as much and as often as they can. They even have more than one holiday which is celebrated by every adult on the whole planet grabbing someone and heading outside to have sex."

"Seriously? Out of all the information in the report, that is what they talked about?" Maddie O'Loughlin asked.

"Well it is pretty interesting." Piers said. "I could think about that for a long time. I mean, the whole planet at once."

Maddie rolled her eyes and said, "I hate boys."

"So," continued Shernan, "this leads to an argument."

"Of course it does, because the only thing boys like better than sex is arguing. And then what did they do next? Did they fight or did they get drunk?" asked Maddie. Christine looked up in surprise. She did not disagree, in fact she might have included sleep with a total stranger to the list, but O'Loughlin was so young. She wondered where the bitterness had come from. Perhaps a recent breakup.

"It was a play argument, not a real one, and it was over whether if they had the chance they would participate in one of those festivals. They all said they would of course, and they all said the other ones wouldn't."

"As if," laughed Piers, "there was any chance at all that with Captain Kirk in the same room anyone was ever going to choose one of those three anyway."

Shernan shrugged and said, "I don't know Mr. Reuben, but Bobo is really funny and cocky, and Pav is always so sweet. A lot of people really like them. And they're both good looking, maybe not Captain Kirk good looking, but then who is? They would be way easier to talk to. And you wouldn't have to worry how you looked all the time. If I were with the captain I would never relax. He's too perfect."

Christine shuddered involuntarily. Fortunately, none of the younger nurses noticed. Trina said, "But anyway, let me finish. They ended up betting about whether or not they would do it. It was a joke, because of course they didn't think they would ever get a chance to find out. But Bobo says Pav disappeared after dinner. When he didn't come back to their room by dark Mr. Sulu called him, and whatever he said made Mr. Sulu laugh. He told them not to worry, that Pav was going to be late, and they all went to bed.

"Bobo said Pav didn't wander in till about three seconds before breakfast and he definitely looked a little the worse for wear. But he didn't say anything until they were back on board. Then when he was helping them put away the gear he said, 'I won, and I want my money.' He said he spent the night with some girl and it was sut, sut, sut. They didn't pay him because Mr. Reuben said it wasn't provable. The point is, Bobo says now that he has the flu Pav is probably going to come into some money. Here we are all worried about him and Bobo is jealous. Isn't that funny?"

The younger nurses all laughed. Christine thought for a second and then asked, "Shernan, are you saying Chekov had sex on Ertruck?"

Shernan looked a little embarrassed but replied, "Several times, according to Bobo Jamen Miss Chapel."

"Why didn't he just say so? It would have avoided so much extra work." Chapel asked.

"I don't know." Shernan said.

"From what I know of him, he did. He probably crowed about it like a scrawny rooster." O'Loughlin said.

Shernan began to argue with O'Loughlin, accusing her of not understanding the depths of Chekov's personality. Christine didn't listen. Instead she opened the ensign's medical records. It took a while to find what she was looking for, the exposure evaluation sheet Dr. Treos had created and all the team members had filled out. She read it carefully and turned to the others.

"He doesn't say anything about sex. He does say he spent a lot of time with a young woman. He says he spent some time sitting with the Ambassador's daughter, but that's all."

"Let me see that." Langdon said. He took the report and read the important section quickly. Then he paged back and called up Chekov's original. His smile widened as he read it. He looked at the young women. "He said sut, the computer read it as sat. Listen to this, the computer says they sat in the garden, and sat on the balcony, and they sat one more time that morning. Wow, three times? Who'd have thought?"

"It's always the ones you don't expect." said Shernan.

"Over like eight hours is not so amazing," said O'Loughlin.

"Oh yes, it is Maddie." Piers said. Trina nodded.

Christine cleared her throat. "What am I missing?" she asked firmly. Three sets of young eyes looked at her.

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Shernan said, "I can't do it, you tell her."

Langdon tried to look sesrious and said, "Miss Chapel, sut is sex. It means like, really, really casual sex, so commitment free it is pretty much just fun exercise. You call it that so everyone understands it isn't at all serious. It's a common expression."

"It really is." added Shernan. "Any one would know what he meant."

"Anyone who's had sex this century." O'Loughlin added archly, looking at her supervisor.

Christine closed the file and stood up. "I need to discuss this with Doctor McCoy. I don't think we are going to have to immunize the whole crew after all. Unless he's been sutting anyone else?"

"Just sut. Not sutting." Langdon said. He looked at Shernan questioningly.

She shrugged. "I don't know for sure ma'am, but I never heard he was. Not lately anyway."

As Christine left for Leonard's office she heard O'Loughlin say, "Oh my God, she is so old."

22:00  
McCoy put his signature on the last of the yeomen's physicals. Finished until next month, when it will be housekeeping's turn, he thought. He sent the files to records and prepared to take a break. Just as he finished his pour, a little knock came from the door.

"Come." he said with a sigh.

"I was hoping you were drinking." Montgomery Scott said as he poked his head in. Just seeing him made McCoy feel happier than he had all day. Scotty was cheerful and sensible, an unusual combination.

"I'm drinking bourbon." McCoy said.

"And I brought my own, so it doesn't matter." Scotty said, holding up a flask.

"They stretched out their legs before them and sipped.

"Do you think I have trouble sharing responsibility?" asked McCoy.

"What, because you are still in your office at 2200 signing papers that could have been delegated to the night or evening shift physicians? No, that's perfectly normal."

McCoy sighed. "I don't get many chances to meet the crew while they're healthy. When I read the physicals, it helps me put a name to a face. It isn't that I don't think other people are qualified to do it, I think it makes my job easier for in the long run."

"Makes perfect sense to me. Who says you don't share responsibility?"

"Chapel. She dared me to stay out of Treos' way during our flu outbreak, which appears will be limited to one patient by the way. Turns out the scientists on Ertruck were right, and it is spread through close contact with body fluids. Chekov insists he has managed to keep his body fluids intact since he returned to the ship. Treos is mighty disappointed. I told him not to lose hope. There's a chance Chekov's lying. Boy wasn't all that forthcoming about his body fluids prior to this."

"Treos? Is that the bioengineer?"

"That's him, he's an engineer, and a doctor of medicine. And a horse's ass. Even Chekov thinks so. He called him that when he didn't know he was being translated."

"Aye, I've met him. He's been down to engineering and managed to get in everybody's way several times. He's not that old Len, he's what 33, 35 at the most? If he went straight through and got his engineering degree at 23, his medical degree at 27, and did his PhD in four years he didn't finish until 31. I'm not sure how long it takes to become a horse's ass, but he can't have had time to have practiced much medicine. No wonder you are worried."

"Exactly, Patel says she'll supervise Treos, but, I don't know, Chekov is complicated. He never just comes in and gets well. I have a bad feeling about this."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Chapel made me promise I would stay out of it, so not much. Instead I'm concentrating on getting Starfleet to fire him. I already notified them that he made a mess of surgery on an enlisted guy from security. I am waiting for their response. I am hoping they will allow me to terminate his rights to practice medicine on the ship. As soon as they do I am shutting down his whole operation. In the meantime, I'm sitting and worrying" He raised his cup in a salute to his friend and said, "Oh, and I'm drinking."

Scotty raised his cup too and said, "And really, what else were you going to do anyway?"

"Exactly, and what else would I do anyway?" McCoy said and finished his glass.


	5. Chapter 5

Friday

0545  
M'Benga called McCoy in early. There had been an accident in the storage area, a gravity sled lost its charge and dumped its load onto two workers who, completely against procedure, had been using it to move items above their heads. It was forbidden because it was so dangerous. Both patients had skull fractures, and their other injuries were severe. McCoy took Michael Rhodes. He had spinal damage, a crushed pelvis and an open femur fracture, but most serious was the injury to his brain. M'Benga took the compound fracture of both arms and chest contusions. It was a long morning. It was close to noon when McCoy finished. He watched Mr. Rhodes, his patient, be moved to recovery. He checked on Miss Ba, M'Benga's patient. She was stable. Then he went to look in on the ward.

1140  
Jamen was sitting on his bed holding a little mirror in front of his face, wiggling it back and forth to see his nose from every angle. When McCoy came into the ward he jumped out of bed and wrapped his arms around the surgeon murmuring, "Thank you doctor, thank you doctor," with tears in his eyes. McCoy patted him awkwardly.

"Glad you're satisfied son. Happy to be of help." he said, trying to disengage himself from the now weeping young man. "Keep your hands away from your face and you can go home tonight or tomorrow."

Updating his notes at the desk, McCoy reflected on how nice it was to have something end entirely well. Bobo Jamen was happy and whole, the robots were barred from the surgery suites, and Treos's research had a serious blemish on it. It wasn't as good as Jamen never having been damaged, but it wasn't bad.

He picked up a medi kit and started down to security to check on the patients in the brig. He tried not to look at the isolation unit on his way out, but he couldn't help it. He saw Jim sitting by the comm.

McCoy had never served on any ship but the Enterprise, but every more experienced physician who spent any time at all on the unit commented on the captain's frequent visits. Jim was a very personable man, it was one of his best qualities. He stopped by sick bay every day, and tried to visit every crew member.

"Hey Bones," said the captain. "You going to lunch? I'll go with you." He typed a few more strokes to the comm screen and stood up.

McCoy asked, "What's that you're doing?"

"Chekov fell asleep while I was talking to him. I thought I would leave him a note. He doesn't look good Bones. Is he alright?"

"I've been busy this morning, with Rhodes and Ba. But I haven't heard that he isn't." McCoy said tightly, not wishing to discuss it.

"Oh, sure, Chapel told me they are stable. Is that right?"

"Ba is, Rhodes has a very significant brain injury. Time will tell."

The captain grimaced and said, "It can be so depressing down here. How do you stand it?"

"What choice do I have?"

"Good point." said the captain as they stepped into turbolift. "Lunch?"

1330  
McCoy enjoyed his meal with the captain, and then went on to the brig. He was there when the emergency tone sounded on his communicator. He didn't stop to answer it, just pushed the button that signaled he had received the call and started running for the lifts.

When he arrived in sick bay one of the nurses at the front desk pointed towards the recovery room and said, "Mr. Rhodes," in a small voice. They all stood back and let him run through.

Neurological function on the young man was failing rapidly. He was having a protracted seizure despite being heavily medicated. McCoy joined the PA Coh, Christine and two of the newest nurses around the bio bed. He used the neurostimulator. Rhodes stabilized briefly, then his heart stopped. They got it restarted, and the seizures began again.

"His brain is too badly injured, it is not repairable," Coh said.

McCoy ignored him and continued to try. After an hour of intense effort Rhode was no longer seizing, but he was completely unresponsive. The machines made him breath, cleaned his blood, kept his heart beating and dispensed nutrition into his system. But machines would not make his brain work correctly.

The medical team gathered at the end of the bed. Coh looked at the monitor and sighed. The young nurses stood with arms around each other and watched the numbers on the board slip down. Christine looked at Leonard. He was staring at the bruised young man on the bed.

"I think he's dying," Christine said quietly.

Leonard shook his head. "He's dead. The machines just don't know it yet, but soon he'll have so much cellular disruption that the nerves won't be able to carry a charge."

"Do you want me to call it?" asked Coh.

"Call what?" asked one of the young women in a quavery voice.

"Time of death," McCoy said. "No Coh, thank you, but this is my responsibility. Do you have a PADD Christine?"

Christine handed him the device. He found Rhodes' records, and made a notation. He looked at the chrom, and then reached out and turned off the master switch for all the life support devices. The room seemed very quiet when the machines stopped working. Dr. McCoy continued to stare at the young man in the bed. The rest of the team watched the monitors.

When the last of the symbols above the bed faded to black, Coh said, "There it is."

McCoy nodded. "We'll say 1436. Does anyone know the stardate?" he asked.

"I will fill it in." Christine said.

"Thanks, it will be important to his family. Thanks, everyone." McCoy reached out and closed Mr. Rhodes' eyes. He stared at the young man a few more seconds, then turned and walked out of the room.

When he walked past the desk one of the nurses said, "Dr. McCoy, we have a sore ankle in exam room two."

"I am going to take five minutes. Can one of you call the morgue?" McCoy answered.

"Yes doctor," the nurse replied, reaching for a comm.

McCoy walked into his office and sat quietly in his chair. He interlocked his fingers, and sat quietly with his head balanced on his hands. He concentrated on breathing slowly, counted to two hundred, and then stood up. He took one more deep breath and then walked back out to the desk.

"Ankle in two?" he asked.

"Yes doctor," said the young woman. "And Mr. Brown is dressing a chemical burn in three if you want to see it before he covers it."

"I do." he said, and went back to work.

1600  
Christine decided to stay through part of beta shift and help with the immunizations. She didn't want to. She was tired. It had been a long day. She had been forced to intercede in an argument between Patel and Treos. Patel had wanted to vaccinate the entire crew for the Ertruckian flu, Treos had wanted to immunize no one. It had not appeared to embarrass him to explain that he hoped to get a few more cases for his study. Christine had tried to remind them that Chekov swore he hadn't had the opportunity to infect any of the crew. They had continued to argue as if she hadn't spoken. She had tried again to interject a little rationality into the discussion, and again they had ignored her. She left them arguing and went to the desk. She had sent a ship wide communication asking any crew members who remembered spending significant time with Ensign Chekov in the previous week to come to sick bay immediately after the start of beta shift for an immunization. She went back to the two physicians and said, "You are compromising. The details are on your PADDS."

She had felt a little proud, but her solution pleased neither of the doctors, and they had spent most of the rest of the morning complaining to her about the other one. Every time one of them spoke she thought she had never missed Leonard more.

She left Langdon to watch the floor and took O'Loughlin and Stein to admitting with her to give shots. They stopped in the pharmacy to pick up some hypos. They could hear voices from the admitting area with the doors closed.

"Sounds like a party!" Stein said.

"It's probably some ensigns from engineering; I don't know why but they are always noisy." Christine said. She opened the door to admitting. "Oh my," she added. The room was packed. There were crew members in every color sitting or standing. The doors were open and she could see additional heads in the passageway outside the doors.

"Wow," Stein said, "he's popular."

O'Loughlin shook her head. "There's no accounting for taste," she said.

Christine told O'Loughlin and Stein she would handle admissions while they gave the vaccines. She went back to the nursing desk to gather additional materials. She glanced over to the isolation unit and saw three men in red standing around it. She hurried over.

"The units are not open to visitors," she said.

"Doctor Treos told us we should come up and take a look at the future of medicine," one of the young men said. "I think it looks like a bouncy house."

Another man asked, "Isn't Chekov supposed to be in there somewhere? I don't see him."

Christine peered into the unit. The PCUs were in their charging dock, and there was no trace of the ensign. Concerned, she checked the door, it was still sealed. It didn't seem possible he could hide in the tiny unit. She went around the desk and put her face against the wall and looked more closely. One of the guards pushed at the unit and said, "It looks like a hamster ball. I bet Chekov looks cute when he pushes it around to get some exercise."

His companions laughed noisily. One said, "squeak, squeak." They laughed even harder.

There was a balled-up blanket on the bed. It crossed her mind that he might actually be small enough to hide under a blanket. She went to the far side of the unit, to get a look at the other half. Chekov was on the ground, on the opposite side and under the bed. He had the hospital gown pulled over his legs and his arms crossed across his chest. He looked furious. He wouldn't even meet her eyes. She decided to give him a break. "Gentlemen, there are no visitors allowed. We are going to have to go back to admitting," she said firmly and led the young men that way.

Security guards delivered, she looked around for Treos. She spotted him working the admitting room like it was a party, welcoming people and offering explanations of his work. She waited until he finished talking to some ensigns from engineering and then said, "Doctor Treos, stop sending people into the ward. Ensign Chekov is not an exhibit."

Treos looked surprised. "We are making history Chapel. He should be proud to be a part of it."

"He has been quite clear that he isn't, so stop it," she said.

"We should get some holos," he said.

"No," she said firmly, trying to imagine Leonard's reaction to Treos offering commemorative pictures. "Trust me on this, we have enough to do without making more work."

"Too bad we don't have any patient care units to help us," he said. "I should have brought more."

"Yes, well, our loss," she said thankfully.

She set up a makeshift desk and started doing admissions. Because of the misunderstandings with his previous attempt at organizing a round of immunizations, Dr. Treos wanted each recipient spoken to by a living being who checked ID, asked very specific questions about methods of exposure, and verified allergies. About 1630 she went to Leonard's office and asked him to come help. The work was tedious, but not hard. She didn't actually need assistance, but she thought on a day like this he definitely shouldn't be left alone to brood.

She began to admit an enlisted man from security named Hendorff who claimed to play on some sort of sports team with Chekov. Mrs. Sanchez took the seat in front of Leonard.

"Hello Sanchez. Well, you at least should probably be here,'" Leonard said as typed with one finger at an admission page.

The gamma shift nurse smiled happily and said, "Hello Dr. McCoy, it's nice to see you in the light of day! How is our favorite little patient?"

"Um," began McCoy. He looked over at Christine.

"If you mean Ensign Chekov, he's got the flu. The lab confirmed it. He doesn't feel great but we are confident he will be better soon," Christine spoke without looking up from the admission sheet she was completing.

"Can he have visitors?" asked the athlete.

Christine looked around the crowded lobby and then said, "No, definitely not." McCoy looked at her with surprise and she said, "Remember he's in isolation."

Sanchez frowned and looked at McCoy. "What," she asked, "do you think about that bubble unit doctor? I don't think people were meant to be taken care of by machines. Every time I went to check on Pasha last night those two things were hovering over him like hornets. He doesn't like them. He kept covering his head with his pillow trying to get some quiet. That isn't good when you have a fever. That boy needed to sit up, drink something warm and have the bed fixed, not to be hiding from electronic demons."

Christine said firmly, "They are robots, not demons."

"They are patient care units, not robots," Dr. Treos corrected. He had unluckily chosen that moment to join them.

"Most people are calling them air squids," volunteered Hendorff. "Did you guys know they tried to kill Bobo Jamen?"

"I said the same thing myself Mrs. Sanchez, at the staff meeting where we discussed Ensign Chekov's care. I was outvoted." McCoy said. Christine gave him a warning look. He had promised to try not to provoke Treos.

Treos said confidently, "You don't have to worry about the ensign Mrs. Sanchez, I am personally supervising his care, and the patient care units are performing admirably."

Mrs. Sanchez snorted. She said, "Those robots are useless."

"The patient care units can provide care without becoming disease vectors themselves," Treos said.

"They woke him up for his breathing treatments every four hours even if he had just fallen asleep. And then an hour after that they woke him up and gave him a hypo. No nurse would do that. They keep talking until he sits up and answers them. How is he going to get better if he doesn't get any sleep? If that boy was on the floor I would have made him weak tea with lots of honey. That's how he likes it."

Treos said slowly, like he was explaining something to a child, "He can ask for tea. He can ask for anything and the care providers can get it. It's just the same as having a nurse. If you step in and do things for him we won't have any way of demonstrating that they can."

Sanchez shook her head. She said, "You think because you are so educated that you can talk down to me. But I know a boy that age is never going to ask for help. He thinks it will make him look weak. You have to know who you are caring for. I bring tea to him because I know what he likes, because we have spent so much time together, and because I understand what a sore throat feels like. I know it because I have worked a long time. I have cared for more sick people than you can know. A nurse looks at the whole person, and figures out how to put all the things a person needs together in a way that helps them the most. No machine will do that."

Christine looked at her old supervisor in surprise.

"Bravo," Leonard said. He jerked his thumb towards Mrs. Sanchez and said, "I just got another one for my trustworthy list Christine."

Sanchez continued, "That boy does not sleep good, he needs someone to talk to him nice and quiet and help him settle down, not those robots waking him up all the time."

"He needs the breathing treatments," Treos said.

"He likes his pillow fixed. They didn't do that." Sanchez said.

"Mrs. Sanchez, this is science, not a slumber party. My devices are meeting the ensign's health care needs. It is difficult to write an algorithm for pillow fluffing." Frowning, Treos stomped over to the door. He saw some late comers arriving, and greeted them warmly.

Leonard cleared his throat. He said, "Mrs. Sanchez, I want to be sure you get to fill out an evaluation form for Dr. Treos' work. I am making a note here to send you one myself." He ignored the exasperated look Christine shot him.

"Dr. McCoy, I am really worried." Mrs. Sanchez said. "That boy is very sick Dr. McCoy. You know him, you know how he gets. He's sensitive. It is depressing in there for him in with those things."

"I agree," said Hendorff, leaning over to pat the older woman's shoulder with a huge hand, "those things are creepy."

Leonard looked at the older woman for a few seconds, gave her one of his twisted smiles and then said, "I will put down for your possible method of infection, provided nursing care."

"Usually yes, but not this time, not nearly as much as I wanted to," she said sadly.

2100  
There was a soft knock on his office door. McCoy looked up from the files he was updating, wondering who could be out so late. "Come," he said.

The door slid open, and Jim stepped into the room. McCoy frowned, "You don't knock," he said.

The captain slid into the seat across from McCoy and said, "I was down reading up on Rhodes. I'm writing his family."

"Oh, sure," McCoy said. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't know him at all, I went down and talked to his boss, and some of his friends. I think the note will be alright." Jim looked up at his friend and said, "I hate this."

"I know," McCoy replied. He reached for the cabinet, grabbed the bottle and poured a shot for each of them.

After a few sips the captain asked, "Bones, Miss Sanchez just pulled me aside to talk about Treos. What do you think?"

"Did she complain? If she did then I think she's right."

"You don't like him because he's rude, or you don't like him because he's dangerous?"

"That man is an arrogant, inexperienced catastrophe waiting to happen. And he's rude."

"Then why is he still here?"

"I have orders to allow him to do his research. I don't have much choice."

"You're the CMO. Throw him out."

"I can't yet. I have sent a request for permission to do so to headquarters, I am awaiting my answer."

The captain looked at him doubtfully, and then said, "It doesn't seem like you to just let someone to mismanage the patients."

McCoy considered before he answered. He did not want to discuss the situation with anyone, but Jim was not really just anyone. Slowly he said, "It is more complicated than that. I have got a lot to think about. Christine assures me I have neglected my actual responsibilities to micromanage my staff in a manner they find disrespectful. I am trying to allow my subordinates some autonomy." He took another sip and added, "It's killing me kid."

Kirk smiled, but his eyes looked serious when he said, "It's not going to kill my navigator is it?"

McCoy set his drink down. He looked at his friend and said, "Captain, I would not allow anything bad to happen to that boy."

"Good," said the captain. "Because I just left him and he looks like shit. I think he's getting worse, not better."

McCoy said, "Patel is managing his care, I have been trying to stay out of it because of my bias, which Christine assures me is profound."

"What bias? You don't have a bias."

"Christine thinks, no, she has observed, that I spend an inappropriate amount of time worrying about one ensign. I am trying to be fair."

"Seriously?" Kirk asked. "She thinks it is a bad thing you worry about the crew? What is bad about that? It's why you are awesome."

"She thinks I don't let anyone else worry about the patients. Patel was willing to work with Treos, and she is a competent physician. She doesn't seem worried, but I will be sure and round with her tomorrow. I will check on him."

"Okay," said Kirk, "But, seriously, I want you to know the crew is the important thing. I would always want you to put a stop to anything you felt was dangerous to them. I don't care what headquarters wants or what anyone else says. You're the CMO, you're the boss. I will support you any time you have concerns."

"Thank you, sir," McCoy said. He was touched, it was rare for the captain to be so serious.

"You're really the only one down here I completely trust, I mean, I know all the rest of them are fine, but I owe you my life Bones, several times over. You are CMO because you are the best."

They drank awhile. Jim added, "Bones, I really don't want to write any more of these letters."

McCoy refilled the glasses and raised his in a toast. "To no more letters."


	6. Chapter 6

Saturday

0700  
"Mr. Jamen slept quietly," Xetic said.

"I forgot to discharge him." Leonard said, smacking the table in frustration.

Christine said, "You were a little busy, and it isn't like you are the only physician in the unit."

M'Benga said soothingly, "He was already asleep when I came on. We had plenty of empty beds so I just let him stay. I know how you feel about seeing your own patients and I thought you would wish to do it this morning."

"Thank you doctor," McCoy said, sincerely, he really did prefer to discharge his own patients.

It was shift change. There were so few patients in the unit gamma shift was simply reporting to alpha rather than rounding. McCoy and M'Benga sat at the desk and listened with Christine and the three nurses scheduled to work the unit. Treos sat with them, making notes in a PADD while they talked. There were also three very young women in attendance, the new graduates that had joined the crew at Ertruck. It seemed to McCoy that they had spent a great deal of time watching the work without actually doing much, and he wondered when they would be considered trained. He resolved to learn their names so that he wouldn't sound clueless when he asked Chapel about it.

Xetic continued, "I cleaned his wounds this morning, they look well, no swelling at all, and there is excellent perfusion of the new tissue. Miss Ba is in bed four. She is stable. Labs are good, lungs and wounds look good. We got her up and walked twice. She is oriented now, but has no memory of the accident. She was asking about it. Her division chief came last night and told her of Mr. Rhodes' death. She was understandably upset, but she has an excellent support group. Members of her division have sat with her almost continually since she awoke yesterday. Annabelle kept them well supplied with tea and sympathy."

Sanchez blushed modestly and said, "She's lucky in her friends."

Xetic fluttered his feelers in agreement. He continued. "And the only other patient last night was Ensign Chekov. As per Dr. Treos' orders I didn't approach the isolation unit. Annabelle had a little more trouble staying away, but we didn't interfere with the patient care. Ensign Chekov continues febrile, but is stable according to the reports we got from the PCUs. He did tell Annabelle his eyes are bothering him."

"They itch," Sanchez explained.

"Why do they," began Leonard, but he stopped himself. Christine nodded at him appreciatively. He didn't notice, she assumed he was trying to decide how best to get someone else to find out more about the trouble Chekov was experiencing with his eyes. She sympathized.

"Why do," Christine started, but the researcher interrupted.

"He's doing great," Treos said enthusiastically without looking up from his PADD.

"John, I do not believe I would say great." M'Benga said. "His fever has not been below 38 degrees since he came to the floor, he won't eat, and that cough sounds horrible. I started some fluids."

"I noticed, I really wish you hadn't done that Geoffrey, it prevented my units from having a chance to order them. Same story with the eyes Mrs. Sanchez. He hasn't mentioned them to my units. He is probably waiting for you to take care of it. When I say I don't want people visiting with him, it is to prevent precisely these kind of problems," said Treos. "You make it possible for him to not deal with the PCUs when you talk to him. In the future, just pretend he's not there."

M'Benga tapped his face and then said, "I am the night shift physician John, and he is here. I am going to evaluate and if necessary treat the patients."

"I am interested in seeing if my units can treat him."

"I am interested in protecting his kidneys. The extra fluids won't hurt him if they are unnecessary."

Christine looked over at Leonard, she expected him to be pleased that Treos seemed to be beginning to bother even M'Benga, but he was stil lost in thought. She was surprised, but impressed with his with his self-control. She would not have assumed he could step back from the ensign's care so easily.

Around her the discussion continued. M'Benga said, "Every time I checked on him he seemed miserable."

"But stable, look it says right here, 'Bed One, stable." Treos said.

Leonard perked up enough to ask, "Oh did Patient Care Unit 1 tell you Bed One is stable?" Christine sighed.

"Yes exactly." Treos said, holding up his PADD and missing the look M'Benga and Leonard exchanged. He added, "I have to admit, I am a little disappointed. That ensign is a less than ideal subject. I think maybe he is just not smart enough to understand my instructions."

Leonard snorted. "He is," M'Benga said.

"Really? You think so? He still refuses all but minimum interactions with the care units. There is a lot more they could do for him. I am hoping when he gets tired of being sick he will be more reasonable."

M'Benga said, "We do not usually wait for the patients to become too exhausted to object before we try to make them comfortable John. Have you tried discussing this with the ensign?"

"That would be capitulating. I told him, as I keep telling all of you, that this is a test of the program's ability to care for an illness without supervision. He needs to talk to the units." Treos said firmly. M'Benga and Leonard exchanged another doubtful look and Treos added, "And, in all honesty, he and I are not actually speaking much anyway. He is very rude."

"He has lovely manners," Sanchez said.

"Lovely manners! Half the time he pretends he doesn't hear me. I know he's lying, he manages to hear Patel. I told him I knew he was lying and he asked me to repeat myself. Like five times, some nurses laughed at me." He looked at Leonard expectantly.

Leonard said, "Miss Chapel manages the nurses John, you'll have to speak to her about it."

Treos looked at her. She said, "I will make a note of it."

"Anyway, he told Patel he was fine. He is getting his medicine. There isn't much else you can do for a flu."

"We can only hope John," said Leonard, "that next time you get a more compliant subject."

"Why thank you Leonard. I appreciate that." Treos said. Christine rolled her eyes.

Xetic made the loud fluttery click that was his species way of clearing their throats. He said, "Finally, at various times during gamma shift members of the housekeeping staff stopped by requesting immunization against the flu. In total I gave out five injections. There is still plenty of the vaccine left."

"Why would housekeeping think they need immunized? That doesn't make any sense." They haven't even cleaned the unit, so they can't have been exposed." Christine said.

"There was, I understand a birthday party Sunday morning for the department head. Ensign Chekov was present. There are reports of kissing and shared cake."

"Wait, are you saying there was some kind of orgy in the housekeeper's office?" asked Brown.

"I said nothing like that." Xetic replied.

You said kissing."

Xetic said, "As it was described to me, everyone kissed the cheek of the celebrant. It is considered I understand, a friendly gesture. But as they did it sequentially, there were concerns about remnants of saliva."

"Gross," murmured one of the new nurses.

M'Benga shrugged, and said, "I thought immunization was a reasonable precaution."

"And I concur," Leonard said. He took another sip of his coffee and then said, "That kid knows an amazing number of people. Do any of you have any idea who the head of housekeeping is? I don't know their name, little lone their birthday."

"I can't remember her name," Christine said, but I know her by sight. She's human, an older woman, gray haired. Not a big talker, she always looks a little cranky."

McCoy noticed that the youngest nurses glanced at him when Christine said cranky. McCoy scowled at them. They all looked away nervously.

"Daisy Garret," said Sanchez.

"What's that?" asked M'Benga.

In his soft clicking voice Xetic said, "The head of housekeeping is called Daisy Garrett. She and Annabelle are old friends. They often take their break together. Mrs. Garrett comes by the unit at least once a gamma shift to see if we have any unusual needs. She is very efficient. I was not aware it was her birthday."

"It was an impromptu gathering," Sanchez said, "I'm sorry Xetic, I should have thought to call and invite you."

"Do not worry Annabelle, I would not have attended. I can neither kiss nor eat solid matter. I wished her happiness last night."

"Well good," said McCoy. "That makes me feel better. I was concerned I was the only one not invited for cake and kissing. I was beginning to worry people thought I was cranky or something. I would hate that."

The three little nurses looked at him anxiously. One blushed fiercely. Christine gave him a withering glance and shook her head. He picked up his coffee and pretended to take a big drink. He kept the cup by his mouth to hide his smile.

0830  
"Miss Chapel?"

Christine looked up. Across the desk was the first officer. She raised her hand to touch her hair, but controlled herself and picked up a stylus instead. She licked her lips and said, "Mr. Spock, how can I help you?"

"Dr. Patel sent me a communique informing me that as a member of the bridge crew I am considered at some risk for exposure to the Ertruckian influenza."

"And," Christine wished her voice would sound stronger, "you would like to be immunized?"

"On the contrary, I do not wish to be immunized. It is, I believe a waste of both time and resources. I consider my risk of infection to be extremely low, certainly less than one percent. My physiology is not human. I was present at the dinner at the Ertruckian embassy and was not infected at that time. While it is true that both on and off the bridge, I do work with Ensign Chekov, we are seldom in close physical proximity. Our interactions are primarily verbal and have never been sexual."

"Ah," Christine said. She looked away and blinked a few times.

Mr. Spock continued. "My research indicates the primary method of transference for this virus is sexual contact."

"That is the understanding yes."

"Therefore, even if it were possible for the virus to live in my body it would be extremely unlikely that I could have contracted it. Dr. Patel however does not agree with my assessment. She repeated her request that I be immunized yesterday. This morning I received a message from Dr. McCoy telling me to, and I quote, 'climb off that high horse and present yourself to the medical unit for your shot like a grown up.' Therefore, I am here."

"Oh, well, that does sound like Leonard."

"Indeed."

"I have been trying to encourage him to step into a more managerial role, do less hands on and more supervisory work. I hadn't thought, but I should probably ask him to consider how he writes. It's one thing to say it, but once it's written down it is there forever for everyone to see."

"Doctor McCoy sent a copy of the message to the captain with a request that he follow up on it. Captain Kirk appeared to enjoy reading it. He then insisted I come immediately for my immunization."

"You would have preferred to come later?"

"As I have just stated, my preference was not to come. However, to interrupt a work cycle does seem particularly unnecessary." Spock did not sound angry of course.

"It is difficult to ignore the captain though."

Spock looked at her without responding. His dark eyes were of course expressionless, but so beautiful. She wondered if she sounded dithering.

She cleared her throat and said, "Well, let's get to it, no use in wasting... resources."

Spock nodded his head and stepped behind the desk. Christine led him to the exam room. She tightened her toes inside her boots so that she couldn't slip into the flat footed plodding walk of many of her coworkers. She showed him to a bed, asked him to remove his shirt, and excused herself to get the hypo.

Shernan was in the pharmacy. She smiled brightly and said, "Another immunization? Do you want me to give the hypo for you Miss Chapel? I know you said it was getting boring."

"No, thank you Shernan. I've started, I will just finish this one," Christine replied. Her voice sounded nervous, but Shernan didn't seem to notice. Christine grabbed a hypo and called up the paperwork on her PADD.

He was sitting perfectly still on a bio bed when she returned. His shirt was off, folded neatly beside him. She glanced at his well-muscled torso as she handed him the PADD, pointing to the area that he needed to sign. He read the entire form, the only patient so far to do so. She watched him read, the muscles of his jaw moved when he swallowed. She licked her lips again.

He signed at the bottom and handed it back to her. She raised the hypo and pretended to study his arm. His skin was very fair. She could see the veins below it, and longed to trace the map they made. Instead she ran her finger gently along the line of his deltoid. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She said, "Leonard likes to do this on the neck, because the skin is thin, but I think most people prefer them in a large muscle."

He said firmly, "It is immaterial. I am ready."

Christine set the hypo against the skin, listened to it hiss, and then stepped back. She watched him pull on his shirt.

"If it swells or itches, come back," she said.

He said, "I believe it is customary to acknowledge the provider's competence at the completion of medical services."

"You're welcome."

He nodded gravely and gestured for her to lead him out. But as left he stopped, looked toward the isolation unit and asked, "May I enquire as to the status of Ensign Chekov?"

"Um," Christine said, trying to remember report. "He is under the care of Dr. Treos and his patient care units. The doctors ordered some extra fluids. It isn't unusual when someone has a fever for several days. Would you like to visit him, perhaps you would enjoy seeing the isolation unit?"

"No, I would not wish to disturb him. Please convey my greetings at a convenient time."

"Yes Mr. Spock," she said.

She watched him walk from the room. Graceful like a cat, not a hair out of order. She sighed again and went to dispose of the empty hypo.

0900  
McCoy discharged Bobo Jamen. With his nose restored he had recovered his usual confidence. When McCoy finished his discharge instructions Jamen jumped up and hugged him. Jamen held on firmly and repeatedly thanked him for his help. McCoy froze while enveloped in the beefy Tridish arms. He felt dwarfed, and he suspected he looked ridiculous. Released, he patted Jamen on the shoulder uncomfortably and reminded him to come in daily for checks of the surgical site. Jamen then walked around the unit and thanked all the nurses. He exchanged hugs with most and kisses with many. Chapel gave him a formal "you're welcome," and stepped back when he came in for the hug, but none of the others appeared to object. Jamen made out the door and to the turbo lift before deciding to come back. He stood in the doorway and announced he was throwing a party to celebrate his return to normal. He went all around the unit again and collected contact information. McCoy noticed Chapel slipped into the break room. Jamen left again. McCoy watched the door for a while, but this time Jamen stayed gone. The unit seemed quiet.

1100  
McCoy grabbed a kit and started to the brig to check on his patients there. It wasn't really necessary, the PA had visited them earlier, but he was bored and wanted to get off the floor. On his way to the lift he glanced at the isolation unit. It shimmered and hummed in the corner. Someone had set a large sign on the table by the comm. It read, "No Visitors" in large letters.

"Now what?" he muttered, and stomped over to the unit. Still mindful of his promise to not interfere, he made a quick check for Treos or the nurse manager. Seeing neither, he flipped the sign down, slipped into the chair at the comm box, and peered into the unit. Chekov lay on the bed wrapped in a blanket. The fluid bag hanging beside him bounced gently as he rubbed at his eyes with the palms of both hands.

McCoy had planned to ask, "How are you feeling?" but when he opened his mouth he heard himself say, "Stop itching your eyes. You're only going to make them worse."

Chekov dropped his hands, squinted at the ceiling, and then gingerly rolled on his side so that he was looking at the comm box.

"Hello Dr. McCoy." he said. He looked pale, except for the skin around his eyes, which was red and swollen, with scratch marks in the skin around them.

"What have you done to yourself now?" McCoy asked.

"I don't know." Chekov said in a defeated tone.

"You don't know?" McCoy said.

"I had some bad dreams." Chekov said, as if that was explanation enough.

McCoy sighed. "Who made the sign?" he asked.

"What sign?" Chekov replied.

"It says no visitors."

"Oh, then perhaps it was Dr. Treos. He said I need to concentrate on his research, or something like that. I did not really listen."

"Good call." McCoy waited but Chekov didn't respond. He asked, "How are those robots? Did they start your IV?" Chekov nodded. "How did that go?"

Chekov shrugged and ran his finger along his bandaged left arm. "I do not think you have to worry about the competition." His hand drifted to his eyes and he rubbed at them again.

"Chekov, stop that," McCoy said.

He dropped his hand again and said, "Yes sir." After a few seconds he added quietly, "they itch."

"You are only going to make them more irritated." McCoy said. Chekov slipped both hands under his body and lay still. McCoy shook his head and said, "Computer, get him a wet rag for his eyes." Neither of the robots moved.

"Try saying, 'Patient Care Unit 1, provide a wet cloth for bed one'." Chekov suggested.

"Patient Care Unit 1, provide a wet cloth for bed one," McCoy repeated. The robot behind Chekov floated to a supply cabinet and found a packet which it opened. On the screen McCoy saw the words, 'heated or cool?' appear.

"Cool." McCoy said.

The screen asked 'For application where?'

McCoy replied, "his eyes obviously." There was a pause and then the robot floated toward the bed. It put one arm on Chekov's shoulder and attempted to position the cloth on his face, but the ensign wrenched his head away and snatched the rag out of the machine's grasp.

Chekov said, "Go away." to the machine. It floated back to its original position. Chekov watched it until he was satisfied that it had moved far enough away, then he opened the rag and laid it across his eyes. He rubbed at his forehead above the cloth and sighed, then he said, "Thank you Dr. McCoy."

"Those machines are supposed to get you anything you want. Why didn't you just ask for it yourself?" McCoy asked.

Chekov shrugged.

McCoy waited a few moments and then said, "You aren't proving anything to those machines by ignoring them you know." When the ensign again didn't respond McCoy added, "If you don't want company Chekov I have plenty of other things I can do. The robots may not mind being ignored but I do."

Chekov lifted the cloth and looked at the doctor. He said, "I am sorry Dr. McCoy. I do want company."

"Well then, sit up and let's have a conversation." He waited while the younger man used the side of the bed to gingerly pull himself upright and then asked, "How do you feel?"

"I feel good." Chekov said listlessly. The cloth had slipped off his face as he sat up. He picked it up and moved the top of his shirt to drape it around the base of his neck. McCoy frowned at the bruises he saw running along the young man's shoulder.

"Are those from hypos?" he asked. Chekov shrugged. "Has Treos seen those? Has Patel?"

Before Chekov could respond the robot suddenly lurched forward, raising several of its arms toward Chekov. McCoy thought perhaps it was going to attempt to return the cloth to the ensign's eyes. But Chekov pushed it back with both hands and hissed, "Go away." The machine swung wildly before righting itself and returning to its waiting position.

McCoy laughed. "I think you won," he said. Chekov smiled wanly. He looked better sitting up, less pale and more alert. McCoy remembered Sanchez saying Chekov was finding the isolation unit depressing. He wondered if he could get M'Benga to tell Patel it was inappropriate to leave a teenager alone behind a no visitor sign. He cast about for a topic and asked, "Don't those things talk?"

Chekov said, "They can still understand speech but I turned off their voices. They were disturbing me. And also I ordered myself several pairs of pajamas." He lifted up his blanket to show McCoy a pair of the standard Starfleet bottoms. He continued, "flannel, just as I prefer."

"But you kept the gown."

Chekov smiled and then said, "It annoys Dr. Treos."

"We think alike," McCoy laughed.

"I also created a few new commands for these robots."

"Like 'go away'?" asked McCoy. Chekov nodded. The doctor laughed and said, "Very impressive. When did you do that?"

"Last night. They wouldn't shut up, so I couldn't sleep anyway. I briefly shut them down completely, and I almost turned off the whole isolation unit, but I realized it would not help. Even Dr. Treos would have noticed that, and he would have turned everything back on, plus he might have created a real password. So I just silenced them. He has not noticed yet. He is not interested in what others have to say, not even his own creations."

"How would you know if he's interested in what you have to say, I understand you aren't really speaking to him."

"I have a sore throat, and then sometimes I can't hear him."

"Yet you seem like you are hearing me alright."

"Ah, yes, well, the noise level fluctuates."

"You've got an answer for everything don't you?" Chekov smiled smugly. McCoy started to tell him not to act like such a child, but remembered just in time who he was talking to. Instead he asked, "How did you do it? Is there a switch or something?"

"I used the PADD that is in here. It was actually Dr. Treos's idea. He said I could do whatever I wanted, and so I did. It was easy. The hardest part was reading the code, my eyes kept tearing, and it was difficult to see."

"That's from the virus, they're swollen. Rubbing them will only make them worse. Didn't anyone explain this to you?"

"No."

Another job for M'Benga, to remind Patel about patient education. Or maybe Chapel could handle it, she was so eager to take on more responsibilities. He decided to deal with it later and returned to the previous subject. He asked, "Chekov, are you saying you hacked his program?"

"Several of them, do you know he has my entire medical record available to those things? I read it. Very interesting, he better not think he can publish it. I will refuse. I liked that you called me stoic by the way. No one else ever has, more the opposite actually. It almost made up for all those times you said I am annoyingly sickly. Almost."

McCoy laughed again. The ensign continued, "Why is that funny? They are my records, I can read them. And he would not tell me what he had planned. He said it was a conversation I should have with the care units. I do not wish to speak to his squids, so I read his plans myself."

McCoy laughed harder. Chekov smiled and said, "I was provoked, Dr. McCoy. Those things never stopped talking. They ordered me to take off my clothes every ten minutes. I had to do something. It was not hard. They were barely even protected."

"He probably wasn't anticipating plague victims wanting to shut down their own caregivers."

"Perhaps,' said Chekov, "he does not know as much about plague victims as he assumes he does."

"When did he begin referring to you as 'Bed One'?" McCoy asked.

"The robots differentiate between the patients by their bed assignments. Even though I am the only patient I am still just the biologic assigned to the first bed to them. I told him I would prefer that he be honest and call me 'Test Subject A,' as that is how he actually thinks of me. But Dr. Treos does not care what I wish, and so 'Bed One' I remain."

"Bed One, it suits you. We'll have to order you a new ID." McCoy laughed.

Chekov started to chuckle, which triggered his cough. He held on to the bed table with one hand and with the other held his ribs like they ached. The robot moved forward and extended its arms as if to support him. Chekov flinched when it touched him. He squirmed under the device and gasped, "go away," all while coughing. The machine moved back again.

"Let it help you son," McCoy said.

Chekov shook his head and curled up on the bed. He coughed a bit longer and then lay still. When his breathing became less ragged McCoy asked him if he wanted a treatment. The ensign didn't respond at first, when he finally replied he spoke very quietly, "Dr. McCoy, please let me out. I hate these things."

"Chekov," McCoy began, preparing to start an encouraging talk about the illness not lasting much longer. The boy raised himself on one elbow. His expression stopped McCoy mid-sentence. On his last leave Joanna had shown him an invitation to a father daughter dance and hesitantly asked if he would extend his leave to escort her. She had looked at him just the same way, face carefully arranged to imply his answer wouldn't matter, but with eyes so hopeful he had known it did. It took a few seconds for him to be able to repeat what he had been forced to say to her, "I can't. I want to, but I have orders."

Chekov nodded. He kept his expression neutral. McCoy was grateful. Joanna had been angry. She had stuffed the invitation into her pocket and told him not to worry, that she had only asked to be polite, and she would rather take her stepfather anyway.

"I am sorry," he added. he had said it then too, she hadn't heard him.

Chekov nodded and murmured, "I understand. Thank you sir."

Pushing back the memory McCoy said gruffly, "You don't have to thank me for disappointing you."

Chekov nodded as he pulled the blanket to his chin. "Yes sir," he said very softly, "I do."

Junior officers were required to acknowledge the decisions of senior ones. He forgot, because usually he and Chekov visited like friends. It occurred to him that Treos had been wrong, the kid had great manners. Chekov had just shut him down in the politest possible way.

He knew it was silly to feel hurt, but he did. He tried to explain, "This is not a punishment Pavel. It isn't what I would want but,"

"Yes sir, I know," interrupted Chekov, in a resigned voice. "It is science."

1130  
McCoy stepped into the turbolift and started down to security. He had stayed a little longer but the ensign had continued polite and distant, not at all like his usual self. It still bothered him. He hoped security would be a good distraction. The place always hummed with energy. Usually he found all the enthusiastic unity annoying, but he had a feeling it might be just what he needed today.

His mood improved as soon as he stepped off the lift, and continued to rise when he presented himself to Giotto and asked to see his patients. Giotto said he would escort him personally.

Meyers and Goj were both healing nicely. They seemed to have recovered from their anger too. Each inquired as to the other's health while McCoy checked them over. McCoy stayed a while and had a pleasant visit, especially with Meyers, who explained some of his old scars. The guards, the chief, and McCoy gathered around the transparent prison wall and enjoyed the stories. It was a little like a Friday night in a bar, without the drinks.

Afterwards, Lieutenant Commander Giotto walked with him back to the turbolift. On the way they discussed the long term implications of the men's injuries. McCoy always enjoyed Giotto, he was completely different from almost everyone else on the ship. He was the oldest officer left, a friend of the original captain's. McCoy didn't consider himself to be true military, but he had always admired those who were. Giotto was easy to talk to. He spoke the truth and preferred to hear it. McCoy appreciated that.

"I think they will both make full recoveries, Meyer is going to take longer, more like a month than a week. But he could do some desk work if you want in maybe two weeks." McCoy said.

"That will be fine. When they get out of the brig they've got to spend a week on report anyway, we'll see how their attitudes are then." Giotto said.

"Which one will you transfer out of here?"

Giotto looked surprised, "Probably neither, unless they request it."

"Aren't you worried about them serving together?" asked McCoy.

"Nah," said Giotto, "this kind of stuff happens all the time. It's usually pretty self-limiting. I only transfer the ones that are constantly fighting or that pick on the enlisted. If I got rid of everybody that got in a fight with a good guy I wouldn't have anybody left to fight the bad guys. They'll probably be best pals again after they serve their time. I'll have them work together on the ship a few times and see how it goes before I send them out on a mission, but I don't anticipate any problems. How about Gouyen?"

"He's to report to the unit on Monday for his study, he does alright he can go back to light duty for a week and then full duty as soon as he feels ready. His problem was electrical and situational, so there's really not that much wrong with him. But I feel like once you actually die, a week of light duty is reasonable." McCoy said.

"Keep him off as long as you want. He will do what you say, and he will say thank you." Giotto said.

"Huh, Well, I don't know about security, but in sick bay, that never happens," McCoy said. Then he remembered that both Jamen and Chekov had thanked him that morning. 'And when it does, I don't really like it,' he thought.

Giotto held out his hand, "Then let me be the first to say thanks Doc, I appreciate all the good work you do."

"Believe me, I appreciate your work too." McCoy said. He left feeling good, like he always did after a visit to security. It was simple there, things were black or white, people were good guys or bad. Sometimes it was nice to take a break from needy and sensitive.

1630  
Christine tapped her front teeth with her stylus and tried to decide what was wrong. The unit had been off all day. It was true that there were only two patients, and Chekov hardly counted, but the unit had been slow before and she never remembered finding a shift on the Enterprise so dull. It was beta shift, but she had been bored most of the day. She had tried all morning to stay busy with reports, but had found it hard to concentrate. It had only gotten worse as the day went on.

Beside her Ruth Stein yawned. Christine clenched her jaw to keep from joining in.

Stein stretched and said, "It's boring today. I miss Dr. McCoy when he's gone. Everything gets so quiet. I know he's only one guy but when he's gone it seems more like six are missing."

Christine nodded. The girl was right. All day Christine had felt like something was missing. It had been Leonard. He had been in his office all morning, even though his record keeping was caught up for the first time in months. They had called him out to see a couple patients, he'd recommended sleep for the headache and ice for the shoulder pain and then gone right back in to his room. At some point he had left the unit without mentioning to anyone where he was going. At first she had been pleased that he was taking her suggestions so seriously. But the quiet made the unit seem dull.

"You could probably take the rest of the shift off Stein," Christine said. "There's the newbies, I'll be here with them another hour, then if things stay slow O'Loughlin and Langdon should be fine. They can call you if things get busier."

"Thank you Miss Chapel, I'll do that, thank you so much!" Stein said. She grabbed her things and ran to the exit, obviously excited to be free.

Christine smiled watching her go. She liked to surprise the staff with an occasional shift off, she remembered how much she had enjoyed them when she was very young. She had always felt like the free day was an unexpected gift, a treasure. She had never done anything important with them, but she had loved them all the same. 'Life is strange,' she thought. 'Now I make my own hours, I could take a day off whenever I want, but I prefer working. I would never have believed that was possible ten years ago.'

She heard the turbo lift open and sat up straighter. She assumed it was Leonard, come back at last. She was glad things would get more interesting, but didn't want him to know she had missed him. She refocused on her PADD and tried to look busy. She was disappointed when the captain came through the unit doors. The muscles in her back tightened painfully, the way they always did when she saw him unexpectedly. He waved and made a beeline for her. She decided to ignore him. It was silly, she was alone at the desk and eventually there would be no way to avoid speaking to him. But she liked to at least pretend that it was on her own terms.

He pulled up a chair. As usual, he somehow managed to take up more room than anyone else ever did. He draped himself over the desk and stared at her expectantly, waiting for the attention he automatically assumed he would get. She pretended the inventory lists she was reading were too interesting to tear herself away from as long as she could. It gave her some satisfaction when he began to fidget. Eventually he cleared his throat . She looked up slowly, trying to imply he mattered to her less than the lists.

He gave her one of his magnificent smiles, which made her angry. He never acted even a little embarrassed to see her. Sometimes she wondered if he even remembered her.

"Hi," he said. "Where's Bones?"

"I'm not certain," she said, trying to sound disinterested. She was actually a little surprised at the question, She had assumed he had gone off on a visit to the bridge and then maybe talked the captain into having lunch in the mess. She wondered where he had got to.

"I was hoping to see him."

"I'll tell him you dropped by," she said and returned her focus to the lists.

"No, I can wait. I'll visit with the crew here first. He'll probably be back by then," the captain said and jumped up. He paused and asked, "that's alright right?"

"You're the captain," she said noncommittally.

"Yes I am," he said with another lovely smile. "Anything I should know?"

'So many things,' she thought, but didn't answer.

"How are Ba and Chekov doing? Are they okay?" He sounded interested, he had always been good at seeming to care. Remembering made her angrier.

"They're stable," she said without looking at him. She kept her face down like she was reading, but from under her lashes she watched him go into Ba's room. She couldn't make out words, but the young women sounded excited to see him and he sounded happy when he replied. It bothered her a great deal Jim Kirk could still disturb her so much.

He stayed with Ba about fifteen minutes. She was still at the desk when he came out of the room. He made his way over to the isolation unit. He looked over at her mischievously and flipped Treos's sign down as he settled into the chair. He leaned into the comm and started talking.

She couldn't hear their conversation either, but a few times she could hear the captain's laugh boom across the unit. She didn't remember noticing it so much on his other visits. Perhaps because there were usually more patients and Leonard to distract her. She stopped trying to even pretend to read and let her thoughts wander. His laugh had been the original attraction. She'd heard him laugh at a party while he was still at the academy and known she had to meet him. He had been handsome, and confident, and obviously destined for success, but really, it was the easy pleasure he took in life that had drawn her to him.

Well, she thought bitterly, live and learn. She glared at his back. He might have sensed it, he glanced over his shoulder and grinned. He pushed his chair back and started towards her. She frowned. It would be impossible to ignore him now that he knew she had been watching. She did not like to leave the desk unoccupied, but she decided just this once not to keep her own rule. She stood up and walked purposely to the break room.

When she returned fifteen minutes later the captain still at the desk. He had been joined by the three young women that had transferred on at Ertruck. They were gazing at him with the awed, amazed expressions she hated most, and he was telling them some sort of no doubt self-aggrandizing story, gesturing wildly. She wanted very badly to deny him an audience. She picked up her PADD and tried to come up with some sort of work she could order them to do. She didn't even hear the turbo lift arrive and was surprised when Leonard came into the unit.

Ba was out walking with O'Loughlin and one of her roommates. She still moved very carefully but managed to raise her hand in a kind of wave to the doctor. He smiled and stopped to visit with her. Christine thought he looked rested, and in a good mood.

"Don't you have some orders to give?" Leonard said as he took the seat next to the captain.

"Gave them, now my loyal crew is busy following them to the letter, so I came down to check on Ba and Chekov. It provided me the opportunity to meet my newest crew members here. I thought it might be a good idea to try and prepare them for some of the hazards they are likely to be exposed to on the Enterprise."

Christine had to bite her tongue to keep from asking him what he was talking about. Intellectually she knew that the best way to keep Jim Kirk from getting under her skin was to ignore him as much as possible. She still had trouble actually doing it. Fortunately, Leonard did not have a similar goal.

"Hazards?" Leonard asked.

"Yes," the captain said solemnly. He gazed seriously at the young woman seated beside him. They all watched him with big eyes.

"The sick bay is very well shielded, you don't have to worry about that, and it has its own tertiary auxiliary power. In many ways it is the safest area on board. Unfortunately, it does have some," he paused, looked like he was searching for the right word and said, "irregularities that seem to be associated with it, and there is nothing I can really do about them."

"What are you going on about now?" Leonard asked.

The captain pretended not to hear him and continued. "I don't want to alarm you, but there have been reports of a very frightening entity lose in the ship ladies, and most of the sightings seem to originate right here."

Christine was glad to see two of the new hires looked skeptical, but the third, Lili Rentuk, seemed concerned. She crossed her arms defensively and asked, "What sort of entity Captain Kirk?"

The captain dropped his voice and continued, "I'm not sure. An energy, a force, I don't know. It is large, close to two meters, but slight. I've heard it described as wraith like. It is mostly blue, literally and figuratively, it wears blue and it prowls the halls moaning. I can say it has never done anything destructive. It just appears occasionally, forecasts a little doom and then disappears back into its lair. If you see it, don't let it worry you. It is cranky, not dangerous."

"Captain, you are teasing us!" said one of the young women, Jessop, Christine thought.

"Am I?" asked Kirk. "You'll have to be the judge."

"Funny." Leonard said crankily.

"Oh, Bones, you scared me there, being so wraith like and all." the captain said, pretending to jump. The young women all laughed. Christine closed her eyes. When she reopened them she sent copies of the inventory list she had just finished to the PADDs of her newest nurses.

"There," she said. "Go down to supply and check those for accuracy." The trainees jumped up and went to work, calling goodbyes to the captain who grinned and waved.

When the young women were out of hearing he turned to McCoy and said, "cute!"

"Jim, they just finished college. Aren't you ever going to want someone you can actually have a conversation with?" asked McCoy.

Christine, tapped viciously at her PADD and wondered if Leonard realized who he was talking to.

The captain shrugged and said, "I said cute, not I am going to make them mine. I'm the captain, I don't troll for nurses. Anymore. Usually."

Leonard snorted. Christine clenched her teeth. Maddie O'Loughlin, who had been walking with Miss Ba, returned to the desk. She sat down quietly and began to add notes to the record.

Kirk continued, "Hey, I know, introduce them to Chekov, they're closer to his age. Maybe that would cheer him up."

Unable to contain herself, Christine said, "This is a work place, not a dating service."

"You're probably right, plus if the venereal flu proves anything it's that he probably doesn't need much help with that, huh? Who'd have thought?" the captain said playfully. Christine was sorry she had spoken.

The captain continued. "So anyway, Bones, that's actually why I stuck around. I wanted to ask you when I get my navigator back. How he's doing?"

"He was fine this morning." Leonard said. He looked at Christine questioningly.

She slapped at the remote monitor for the isolation unit. She studied the display and said, "He's stable."

The captain rolled his eyes. "You say that all the time. What does that even mean?"

"It means he's not worse. Is there anything else Captain Kirk?"

"Uh, no thank you, very edifying Miss Chapel." the captain said. He turned to Leonard and said, "I think you should let him out, he seems pretty bored in there."

"Did he tell you to ask me that?" asked Leonard.

"What? No, of course not!"

Leonard raised an eyebrow without commenting. After a beat Kirk said, "Well, maybe, but really we both thought of it. You should do it Bones. He gets lonely and you know he isn't good at being bored."

"He's already made it clear he wants out. I didn't do it for him and I'm not doing it for you. Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much. He's been keeping pretty busy." Leonard said.

"What do you mean?" asked the captain.

"He told me this morning he used the PADD in there to hack Treos's program. He shut down the robot's voices, and created some new commands."

"Like what?"

"He taught them to back away when he tells them to. It's pretty impressive."

"You are kidding me. No, he didn't tell me that. That guy is so smart."

O'Loughlin made a derisive noise. "He thinks so anyway," she said.

Christine couldn't help herself. She said, "He eliminated the only companions he is going to have this stay. Okay, they aren't alive, but he is stuck with them. He better not whine that he is lonely or bored, he did it to himself. And Dr. Treos has ordered the nursing staff to stay away from the isolation unit. So Chekov is going to be sorry if he interfered with the robot's ability to provide care. Is he getting his meds?"

Leonard explained, "He said they still work and that he's doing everything he's supposed to, he just didn't want to hear those mechanical voices any more. I don't blame him, I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but those things may actually be more obnoxious than their creator. Personally, I support him, I feel like this gives us all a small victory over Treos. I'm only sorry he can't turn the good doctor's voice off as well."

The captain sounded awe struck when he said, "I love it. It is so Chekov. Anyone else would have gotten mad and maybe kicked a hole in that balloon. But he quietly goes to work and dominates them. How can you not love that kid? I am glad he's on our side."

"I have to admit, I was impressed too," Leonard said. "He said he could have shut them down completely but didn't. I think that when those things get terminated I will let him do the honors."

"Are you getting rid of them?" asked the captain.

"Oh, as soon as Treos is gone his creations are too." Leonard said. "I'll have them turned off before his shuttle leaves the dock. Everything about this experiment bothers me. I don't care how many degrees he has, Treos is no doctor. If he was he would understand that he's coming at this from the wrong direction. He started with the disease. The robots treat symptoms. But you can't practice medicine without considering the patient. There are some individuals who benefit from being left mostly alone when they are ill, Spock comes to mind, and there are several others on board. Our navigator however, is the last person who could be encased in a balloon and ignored till he gets well. I'm surprised it's gone as well as it has so far. That boy is highly strung under the best of conditions, throw in a high fever and sometimes he becomes a hallucinating ping pong ball. We've all seen it."

"And we all hope you remember to call us when it happens again." said the captain cheerfully.

"It's a drug reaction, not entertainment." Leonard said dryly.

"It's hilarious, he turns into a cheeky, hyperactive monkey."

Leonard laughed, "I thought I'd have to restrain him. He's lucky everyone likes him."

"Who knew he had such a mouth on him? Remember him telling Sascheja 'maybe you can't but I can.' Remember her face? I am telling you, you could sell tickets. You would easily make enough to buy something fancy for your OR."

"That is horrifically offensive." Christine said without stopping her work.

Leonard looked at her skeptically. "The captain of the ship made a joke Chapel," he said. "He does not really think we should sell tickets to watch the patients in the unit, if for no other reason, than he realizes he would be our number one performer." Kirk laughed. Christine pushed at her PADD fiercely. Leonard continued, "Really Chapel, sometimes I think I could make the case that you are overly involved in that ensign's care. And you are certainly taking your responsibilities too seriously."

"Very funny Leonard," she snapped. "Tell Chekov to stop provoking Dr. Treos. He will listen to you."

"I'm hoping he listens to me, I just encouraged him to keep up the good work," the captain offered.

Leonard raised an eyebrow, "Miss Chapel, is it in the CMO's scope of work to spend time instructing the patients on using nice manners?"

"What's this about?" asked the captain hopefully. She scowled at him.

Leonard sighed and said, "never mind. Captain Kirk, why don't you stop bothering the health care providers? I am going to go to work, and you should too. Harass the bridge crew for a while."

"Yes doctor," the captain said saluting. He turned to O'Loughlin and Christine. "Well ladies, I've got my orders." He left to the turbolifts.

"Finally," O'Loughlin said.

Christine agreed entirely, but she didn't say so.

1940  
The ensign started to cough again. It broke the contact between his back and the probe. Aparna Patel took her earpiece out and threw it onto the desk in disgust. At this rate they would never finish, she would be here all night.

The ensign wheezed, "I'm sorry."

She reinserted the earpiece and started again. "Breathe deeply," she said. The ensign did, but everything sounded wrong. The probe had repositioned. She sighed and leaned over the little desk to squint through the pink wall at the ensign. He was hunched over the table holding his clothes over his head. It looked awkward, but the robots needed bare skin to work correctly. At least it muffled the cough. Behind him, the robot ran one of its rubbery probes over his back. She couldn't make out any details. There was some distortion from the wall, and the angle was wrong.

The screen beside her pinged as the robot reported again that his lungs were clear. She didn't know why the robots had begun to give written reports rather than verbal, but she was glad. Their voices had been distracting. She glanced at the bio bed's monitor, it still insisted he had fluid in the his lower lobes. Unable to examine the young man herself, she needed to decide which machine to believe.

She was finding it far harder than she had anticipated to manage the care of Dr. Treos's isolated patient. She was sorry she had ever gotten involved. At the time she had been very pleased to override Dr. McCoy. She considered it payback for the weeks he had spent checking up on her work and making her defend her decisions. She hadn't liked the supervision and she hadn't liked the brusque way he had spoken to her. But the brief satisfaction she had received had faded quickly, and it had never been worth this much frustration.

"Are you holding still?" she asked. He was shivering. Maybe the motion was interfering with the contact.

"I am getting dizzy," the ensign replied.

She glanced at the chrom. They had been struggling for more than five minutes. "Fine, stop breathing then," she said, deciding the evidence supported the robots for now.

The ensign dropped the clothes and looked at her uncertainly. "Ma'am?" he asked.

She sighed again.

"I mean you should stop breathing deeply ensign, you can of course continue to breathe normally."

He nodded his head and murmured, "thank you, ma'am," while leaning over the bed table guarding his chest. She supposed his ribs hurt, given the frequency of his cough. She looked at the readings again.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

He shrugged. He closed his eyes as if he found the light painful.

She said, "You need to participate ensign, this is difficult,"

He opened his eyes and looked at her wearily. She reminded herself that it wasn't the patient's fault she was frustrated. She regretted agreeing to help Treos with his experiment, but she did not want the ensign to hurt. She took a deep breath and spoke more calmly, "I am somewhat undecided as to what would be most helpful at this point. Could you describe to me please how you feel?"

"I am cold," he said, pulling his blanket up over his shoulders.

"You have a fever. The unit is kept quite warm, 36 degrees. I know it seems counter intuitive, but wrapping yourself up so tightly makes it difficult for your body to dissipate heat. You would eventually be more comfortable if you stripped down."

He continued to look at her. She waited, when he didn't respond she said, "Ensign?"

"No," he said. He pulled the blanket tighter and began to rock gently back and forth on the edge of the bed. "No ma'am," he corrected himself softly. The fluid bag beside him bounced with the movement.

She considered ordering him to remove at least one layer. But remembering how much she hadn't liked McCoy telling her what to do made it hard to order a patient around. And this clothing thing seemed to be a big issue for him. Maybe she could get M'Benga to talk to him about it tonight. M'Benga was a nice man, everyone liked him. He could say things without sounding like he was issuing orders. She made herself a little note.

"There's nothing listed on intake. Is that correct?" He didn't answer but rocked a little faster. She reminded herself again to speak kindly and asked, "Why aren't you eating?"

"My throat hurts and everything tastes bad."

"How about fluids?"

"They taste bad," he repeated.

"But you could drink some juice if I asked you to?"

"Unless I start to cough."

She made a note and then asked, "How are you sleeping?" He shrugged. The robots reported he was asleep at each check, but the bio bed records showed his sleep to have been quite disturbed since his admission. She looked at him again and decided to believe the bed.

She gathered her thoughts and then said, "Well, you have the flu. At this point I think your fever is high enough that we have to consider a secondary bacterial infection in your lungs. Unfortunately none of the monitors show what you are growing, so I am going to have the robots collect another set of samples. I am sorry, I know it isn't pleasant. I'll start you on an antibiotic and stop it if we don't find anything."

She was grateful he didn't argue about the samples, patients used to noninvasive monitoring seldom appreciated the usefulness of lab work. She continued a little faster. "You need some rest. I'll stop the respiratory treatments for the night unless you ask for one. I am going to order a cough suppressant and something for sleep. Right now I want you to drink at least half a liter of fluid, something with some sugar in it. You need some energy. Do you like juice?"

He nodded listlessly.

She looked at him expectantly, when he didn't respond she said, "Could you please ask for some?"

He rolled his eyes, the strongest emotion he had shown the whole visit. He said, "Patient Care Unit 1, prepare apple juice for Bed One. Warm to 72 degrees." The robot closest to him floated to the replicator and went to work. She watched it bring him a glass of yellow liquid. He took a sip, grimaced, and started to set it down.

"Finish it ensign," she said, happy at last to feel certain she was doing something useful. He looked at her without answering. She narrowed her eyes and stared back. She felt like it was some kind of contest. He gave in first. He took a long drink of the juice, gagged, then returned the glass to the table. He sat with his eyes closed, shivering.

"Thank you," she said, "you've made Dr. Treos very happy." He snorted, which triggered his dry, painful sounding cough. He braced himself on the table with both arms. The robot moved forward. He said something she didn't understand and the machine moved back. It was uncomfortable to watch him struggle and not be able to assist.

He coughed for a while, then lay his head down on his arms. The blanket had fallen to the floor, she could see his whole body shivering as he struggled to catch his breath. She tried to think of something encouraging to say and came up with, "I also appreciate how helpful you've been."

He lifted his head wearily. She didn't like the way he looked at her, like she was another thing to endure. It was off putting. Between the robot's ineptitude, Treos's lectures, and the ensign's attitude, there was not one thing about this case she enjoyed. She decided to move on. She stood up and gathered her things. "After the robots collect the specimens I will have them start the meds. I will be on the floor until eleven. I will check in before I go off. Have the robots call me if you need anything before then. I am sorry that you feel so badly."

He said quietly, "Dr. Patel?" She sighed again and sat back down.

"Yes?" she asked, trying to sound patient.

"You should talk to Dr. McCoy."

She had considered talking to M'Benga, but not to McCoy. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She said coolly, "Doctor McCoy is not your physician. I am."

"I know, but I don't do very well with sleep medicines. I cause a lot of trouble. He has seen me do this before. He can tell you."

"I assure you, I am entirely qualified, and perfectly capable of managing my patients without involving the CMO," She knew she sounded angry and she reminded herself that the ensign was only trying to be helpful. He had no way of know how much she resented Dr. McCoy. She tapped her PADD and held up a copy of his records. "I have read the notations about the intolerances in your record. I considered them. My plan is to give you a high enough dose that you go right to sleep. We will bypass the confusion."

He shook his head slowly. She thought he might be going to refuse the meds and said quickly, "It will be fine. The robots will be with you."

He shook his head more quickly. She said firmly, "You need some rest. It will do you a great deal of good."

"You will not think it is good when they call you tonight," he said. "I am sorry in advance."

Relieved he seemed to be acquiescing, she smiled and said, "Be realistic ensign, you are locked in your own little bubble. What trouble could you possibly cause?"

He looked around and said quietly, "I guess we will find out."

2005  
Maddie O'Loughlin sat and watched the desk monitors. There was one for every patient in the unit, all the information from their bio beds available at a glance. Just by looking at them Maddie could tell that the enlisted woman from supply had gone back to bed. She was experiencing some pain, Maddie guessed she would shortly call asking for a suppressant. The command track ensign was also having some pain, nothing major, probably from all the coughing he was doing. He had been at it so long she had turned down the audio so she didn't have to listen to it anymore, but the screen let her know. He had a fever, viruses were running through his blood, and his stress levels were high. If she were in charge he would get a breathing treatment and a strong enough sedative to put him to sleep, but he was the robot's responsibility.

She loved working the monitors. When the unit was busy and the entire bank was lit up, Miss Chapel assigned one nurse to watch them and strategize what help would be needed next. Maddie enjoyed being that nurse. It was what she had assumed working for Starfleet would be like, exciting, technology based. She had signed up assuming that her career would be spent caring for traumatic battle injuries. She hadn't appreciated that in space, like on land, most injuries were minor and most illnesses the run of the mill stuff she didn't find interesting.

Just as Maddie had expected, Miss Ba's light went off and she called, "Can I have a pain shot please?"

'Knew it,' Maddie thought. She looked over at Piers, the other nurse working beta shift. He shrugged and said, "Don't look at me. It's your turn."

"I'm watching the monitors, you're doing nothing." Maddie said.

He held up his PADD and said, "I'm playing solitaire. That's something. It's your turn."

She sighed, and getting up, went to the pharmacy. Dr. Treos, working at his station at the desk gave her a sympathetic smile.

On her way to the room she passed Dr. Patel, coming from the isolation unit with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"John," Maddie heard Dr. Patel say, "we need to discuss Ensign Chekov."

Dr. Treos looked up from his screen. "We do? Alright, what shall we talk about now?"

Maddie was glad to miss the latest not so interesting discussion of Mr. Chekov and his flu. She felt for Dr. Treos, every time the poor man sat down Dr. Patel appeared and asked him some obvious question about their shared patient. The quiet of the desk late on beta shift was why she worked the shift. She resented all the interruptions.

Maddie gave Miss Ba a hypo. She moaned like it hurt, which it didn't. Patients were ridiculous sometimes. Ba's friends, who had crowded into her room all day, all started cooing support. Maddie tried to leave but they asked her to bring fresh water. Then another of the young women let her know they had already taken it upon themselves to fix the bed, so Maddie didn't need to worry. Maddie looked doubtfully at the worn quilt, obviously brought from Ba's room, they had draped over her. She considered telling them the ragged thing was too filthy to be allowed in a hospital, but knew from experience that many of her coworkers considered it charming when patients brought in their own things. She had discussed it with Miss Chapel, who was sympathetic, and shared Maddie's views on personal property on bio beds. But there were not actually any regulations against it and Miss Chapel would not allow Maddie to pretend there were. So instead Maddie assured the young women the bed hadn't entered her mind. She left them hovering around Ba, rubbing her head and crooning to her like she was a baby. Maddie bit her tongue to keep from saying that none of it was likely to help her broken arms.

Dr. Patel was gone when she got back to the desk. Dr. Treos was back at work, peering closely at the screen and muttering to himself.

"I wish you didn't need both your robots for the isolation ward." she said.

He looked up at her with surprise. "Patient Care Units, and mobile hospital facility unit" he said.

She flushed but continued anyway. "I wish I had a robot to do things like take water and give shots for me."

"It's not a hardship Maddie, it's the job." Piers said without looking up from his PADD.

Maddie said, "I can't believe Dr. McCoy wants to get rid of them. If I were in charge we would buy sixty of them. Most of the work we do is so repetitive it doesn't call for an actual brain anyway. It would be great to be free to make the plans, keep the records and handle emergencies."

Dr. Treos smiled. "Exactly," he said. "What's your name?"

"Maddie O'Loughlin," she replied, holding out her hand.

He shook it with a big smile and said, "Maddie O'Loughlin, that is the first bit of forward thinking I have heard on the Enterprise. You are way ahead of your bosses. If I wasn't in the middle of my study, I would let you have the units. You might as well, they're basically ignored all day long. So far my data shows them following orders as written. It makes them look like robots. I am getting no meaningful feedback at all to demonstrate they can work independently. It is very frustrating. It would be great to have my work appreciated on this ship."

"What do you mean he ignores them?" asked Piers. "Every time I check on him he's surrounded by them. I wouldn't think it's possible to ignore them."

"They make suggestions based on his symptoms. He's supposed to make choices and then allow them to provide those services. The records say he has received his medicine, his treatments, meals and some juice. And a cold rag, which was actually ordered outside the unit, despite me going to the trouble of making a sign to remind people I don't want them interfering in my research. He has asked for nothing else. Dr. Patel insists he is worse and wants to start an antibiotic for a secondary lung infection. The ensign never mentioning any discomfort or asked for additional treatments. They don't see any bacteria in their scans. So I see no evidence to support her decision. It's very frustrating."

"They aren't offering him any choices right now," Maddie said confidently.

"What do you mean?" Dr. Treos asked. "Of course they are. I did their programming myself, they offer options based on the symptoms they are presented. They analyze the patient constantly and respond to what they find."

"Maybe so," Maddie said, "but Ensign Chekov turned off their voices so he's not hearing them offer anything right now."

"What do you mean?" Dr. Treos repeated.

"I heard Dr. McCoy tell the captain this afternoon. Chekov got tired of hearing the robots and used the PADD in the unit to turn the volume off." Maddie said.

Dr. Treos turned and stared towards the unit. It was possible to dimly see a robot hovering at either side of the bio bed. "That little shit," he muttered, and then stomped off that direction.

Piers and Maddie watched him go. Dr. Treos leaned into the comm and began to talk. They couldn't make out his words but he called Chekov's name several times. They did not hear an acknowledgement. The doctor sat down at the unit and began to type. The robots began to move around the unit. Maddie could see them, but it was impossible to tell what they were doing from the main desk.

"Way to support Chekov there Maddie." Piers said.

"Like I care? I am glad he's locked in there. This is the only time in all the ones he's been in here that I haven't had to listen to him whine about how he doesn't want ice in his water. I support science, you don't, too bad." Maddie said.

"I am going to love hearing you explain this to Miss Chapel," Piers said.

Maddie looked over at him confidently. "You are going to tell on me?" she said sarcastically. "For what? Discussing the patients with the doctors? Go ahead, but in the meantime, why don't you just put that red six on the black seven? But tell me when you do, I want to be sure I know precisely how you were keeping busy while I was doing all the work. That way I can share it correctly. We'll see who Miss Chapel gets more mad at. Now move, I am going back to work." With that she plopped herself back in her seat and returned her focus to the monitors.

2020  
"Here's the deal," John Treos said. He was sitting at the comm outside the unit and typing furiously as he spoke. "I gave you every opportunity to get on board and you refused to cooperate. Fine, it is apparent that no one on the Enterprise takes my work seriously. Why should you? But I am getting data for my study one way or the other. And if you aren't going to help me you sure as hell don't get to hinder me." He typed a few more commands and continued, "There. I just reset the patient care units to their original programming. And guess what? Special for you I turned the volume up. Now you can either respond to their prompts or listen to them shout ad infinitum. I don't care. And there won't be any more changes made, I deactivated the PADD."

"How am I supposed to know how to respond if you turn off the guide?" asked the ensign. He didn't bother to look at Treos, just lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

"You should have thought of that prior to playing games with my property." Treos said. "You had plenty of time to learn the routines, it's not my fault you didn't take advantage of it. Now sit up, take off your shirt and let me hear you breathe."

"No."

"I said, sit up and take your shirt off."

Chekov didn't move. He said, "It's bad enough I have to be in this fishbowl on display for everyone who walks by. I am not doing it naked."

"This is a hospital. You are a patient. You're not that interesting and nobody's paying any attention to you. I am ordering you to cooperate."

"You are not an officer, you're not even in Starfleet. You can't order me to do anything."

"I will get an officer."

"Fine, and when you do, if I can hear them, I will do as ordered. I might not be able to hear them though, through the walls and the noise of the filters."

"That's not true and you know it."

"You don't have any idea what I know, you've never stayed in here, and now you can't come in. I'm contagious."

Treos nodded, then he reached over and typed an order on the monitor. One of the robots swung around and floated in front of Chekov.

"Bed One, please remove your clothing to allow this medical provision unit access for assessment." the machine intoned.

"Go away." Chekov said.

The robot did not acknowledge the command. Instead it repeated, "Bed One, please remove your clothing to allow this medical provision unit access for assessment."

"Bed One does not require assistance." Chekov said. The robot floated back to its ready position.

"It will be back," Treos said. "Every five minutes, all night long, and then all day tomorrow. I would give up and cooperate if I were you."

"We will see who gives up." Chekov said, "I am an ensign on a starship. I have plenty of experience ignoring stupid things, two more will not kill me." He started to turn to the bare wall, but stopped and added, "and neither will three," before he rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head.


	7. Chapter 7

Sunday

0105  
McCoy left the poker game and started to his room. They played most Saturday nights. Attendance varied, tonight it had been just Sulu, Scotty, Kirk and himself. He had reminded Uhura at dinner but she had said something about working on some translations and then neither she nor Spock made it. Scotty left early, after a call from engineering, and then about midnight a Lieutenant Sorenson, from security, had joined them. Jim had given her a big smile and dealt her in.

Jim liked to host. They always let him. He had the biggest quarters, and it could be convenient when he had someone stay the night. He was the only one likely to have a guest.

They broke up a little earlier than usual. He could tell by the way Jim was looking at Sorenson that he was eager for some privacy. Sulu must have sensed it too, he left at the same time. They walked together to the lifts.

"Good game Doc," Sulu said.

McCoy snorted and said, "Good for you, you're the big winner tonight."

"Well, the captain was distracted and Chekov wasn't here to thwart me." They stepped into the lift and he asked, "How is my little sidekick anyway?"

"I don't honestly know. Patel and Treos are acting as attending, so I've hardly seen him. They tell me he's stable." He added, "Three days is a long time to have a high fever."

Sulu frowned, "He won't like that."

"Nobody likes having a fever."

"No. He won't like having another doctor. He trusts you. It's hard for Pav to ask for help. He likes that you kind of take charge and don't make him."

McCoy frowned and asked., "Did he tell you that?"

Sulu shook his head. "Not exactly, the only time I've ever heard much about his adventures in sick bay is when Captain Kirk retells the story of the great anti-anxiety med fiasco."

"I wish Jim didn't enjoy that story so much. Chekov would probably prefer to forget it. It could have happened to anyone and it wasn't funny."

"The captain thinks it was. You're right though, Pavel is not as enthusiastic. Once he told me that hearing the captain tell the story makes him so anxious he should probably be medicated."

McCoy laughed.

"That's Pav," Sulu said with a smile. "He says things and half the time I don't realize he's been funny until after I walk away. Anyway, I just assume he wouldn't want a new doctor, because he's so private. And I have heard him say," He paused and looked a little embarrassed.

"What?" McCoy asked.

"Nothing," Sulu said.

"What did he say?" McCoy asked.

"Like for instance if people say that you," Sulu looked embarrassed and started again. "If there is ever any discussion about sick bay he always sticks up for you. He says you are kind and the smartest one down there." He paused and then added, "Not that there are people running around saying bad things about sick bay, or you, or anything. Never mind. I shouldn't have started talking. I am never drinking again. Forget it."

They rode in silence for a few seconds then McCoy said, "He said I was kind? He must be confused more often than we know."

"And smart, that's his highest compliment, so, feel appreciated."

After a few more seconds of silence, Sulu added, "He says you have good taste in music."

"He does?'

"Yeah, he says you have amazing taste for an old guy."

"He considers that a compliment?"

"Don't worry about it. He thinks I'm old too. But then, compared to him, everyone is pretty old. Even the captain, although Pav pretty much thinks he's perfect. Anyway, be proud that he likes your music. His own taste is super sophisticated, because of going to school all over. Or so he assures me, usually right before he slams something I like."

"Well how about that?" McCoy said, thinking of Joanna. He knew it was ridiculous to feel proud to have her taste complimented, but he did.

The doors of the lift opened and Sulu said, "This one's mine. Tell him hi for me, will you Doc? I have been so busy I haven't been down to see him. I feel bad about that. He's always great about making time to see people when they're laid up."

"I won't see him till tomorrow."

"Aren't you going up to check on him now?"

"No, it's late, I am going home to bed."

Sulu leaned back in and pointed at the lit-up number on the controls by the door. "If you are going home why did you push for deck 7?"

McCoy grimaced. "Force of habit," he said.

Sulu grinned, jumped back out and let the doors close. McCoy frowned at the glowing 7 and pushed the number for his own floor.

But when he got to his quarters he felt too keyed up to sleep. He started a comm to Joanna, but couldn't think of anything to say. He tried to read but couldn't concentrate. He decided he needed one more drink to calm his nerves. In the interests of enforced self-control, he didn't keep liquor in his room, so he got up, went back to the turbolift and rode to deck 7. He slipped through the back entrance of the medical unit and into his office unobserved.

He poured himself a bourbon and leaned back in his chair. After a few minutes, he instructed the holo viewer to run through his collection of Joanna's pictures. He told one of the audios Chekov had sent him to play quietly. The piece was one of his favorites, but it was ironic Chekov thought it proved he had good taste. He would never have picked it, and originally he had not cared for it. No, he remembered, that wasn't true. When he had first heard it he had loved it. It was only later that he had hated it.

He had received a comm from Joanna in which she had raved about a concert. She had said she was obsessed with one of the performers. She said that she felt like they knew her soul. He had laughed at her dramatic little speech, but had enjoyed it. She seldom shared her opinions.

He had been curious, so he had gone on one of his Chekov hunts. He found the boy in the mess and asked if he knew the musicians. The ensign had looked surprised, sputtered unintelligibly and then messed with his PADD. He had said, "I have sent you my favorite of their work, I recommended finding a private place to listen to it."

He had laughed all the way to his office. Then he started the audio. From the first notes, it had affected him in a way he had never experienced before. The melody had been simple, played on instruments he hadn't recognized. But the singer's rough, untrained soprano had made him remember every mistake he'd ever made. He hadn't been able to understand the words, but he had felt like she was singing his life.

When the song had ended, he had played it again and had the same response. He had stared at the player and wondered how it was possible that he could enjoy it. The music reflective, melancholy, experienced. He had felt listening to the music was a little like a first big swallow of bourbon, painful, but good.

He had understood why Chekov had struggled to discuss the music. It was for adults, impossible to appreciate until one had lived long enough to acquire some regrets. He had felt certain the cheerful little ensign had not suffered enough to understand it. And then he had remembered it was really his daughter's music.

In the absence of shared experiences, he had taken the little bits he picked up from her comms and rare visits, and created a detailed imaginary life for his daughter. In his mind she did only good things, thought of him fondly, and most importantly, was happy. The dark music hadn't fit his fantasy child at all.

He had tried hard to think what regrets the music could possibly call to mind for her. There had been the divorce, but he had always believed she had been too young to have suffered much when he left, and her home life since had been good. He had tried to think of any other sorrows she had experienced. He had been unable to come up with even one. As far as he knew, her last great disappointment had been not getting a pony for her eighth birthday. He hadn't been able to remember her mentioning anything, not an invitation that hadn't come, a slight she had received, a class she failed. She talked of nothing but good grades and good times.

Then it had occurred to him that of course she had her failures, and her fears, but she had never chosen to share them with him. He had never been around enough for her to consider him someone to turn to for comfort. Their conversations consisted of those things any polite child might mention to an adult on the periphery of their life.

He had been devastated.

He had told Nyota he had an emergency on Earth and asked for some help. She hadn't asked a single question, just used the medical channels to make the connection and stepped outside the room. He would always be grateful both for her assistance and her discretion, but it hadn't helped.

When he had finally gotten through, Joanna had sounded just like she always did, happy and busy. He had looked at her through the screen, dressed for tennis, and it had taken all his courage to ask her how she felt. She had laughed and said she felt surprised to hear from him on a Tuesday and then had launched into her usual recital of her activities. Everything she said had confirmed his fear. It had been impossible to say any of the things he wanted to, not while Joanna had been chattering about the school play. He had broken the comm more depressed than he had started it.

After that, he had wandered around in a very black mood. He had snapped at the patients, the crew, his coworkers. After a few days both Jim and Chapel had called him on his attitude. The discussions hadn't gone well, even he had known he was responding rudely. He should have been able to talk to them, they had both known about his family situation. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to explain that he had discovered he barely knew his only child.

He had been brooding at the desk when Scotty called to say an away team was requesting an emergency beam out for two injured crew members. Shortly thereafter Jim had arrived escorting a sobbing young man, and following a stretcher. He had explained that Lt. Lao had been walking with his phaser armed and out when some sort of creature had jumped on him. In a panic the lieutenant had spun around while squeezing the trigger on his weapon. He hadn't hit the animal, but he had managed to unload a heavy stun charge into the chest of Ensign Chekov, who had been standing less than two meters away. They had treated Lao with antiseptic for his scratches and reassurance for his guilt, and then let him go. They had put Chekov in a bio bed to sleep it off. When he had finally awoken, the headache that inevitably followed being stunned had left him so nauseated they had been forced to keep him for observation.

Fretting over his relationship with Joanna had made sleep impossible, so the next morning McCoy had gotten up very early. He had wandered the ship, and eventually ended up in the medical unit, looking for something to do or someone to fight with. After pacing the unit for a while he had told Chekov he was sick of listening to him retch and had ordered a hypo for nausea.

After he had gotten the shot, the boy looked around the room and asked where the dragons had come from. McCoy had drawn up a hypo to reverse the first. It had made Chekov sick almost immediately. Sascheja had been so furious McCoy had meekly offered to sit with the patient. Sascheja had fluttered off muttering about doctors, and left them alone.

Chekov had been poor company. McCoy had tried to make conversation, but it had quickly deteriorated into him solo complaining about how much he disliked the crew going on away missions. That led naturally to him mentioning a few other things he disliked. He hadn't said anything about why he was really unhappy. He had made it a practice never to talk about Joanna except with his closest friends. But she had been on his mind, and without thinking, he had included the disturbing music on his list of complaints.

Chekov had interrupted his rant to say, "I am sorry doctor, I thought you would enjoy it. Usually our tastes are similar, and I love that piece."

The kid had sounded so pathetic McCoy had felt a little guilty. He had said, "I am not saying it isn't technically good. What are they playing, some sort of guitar?"

"I can't pronounce what they are called. They are used in the Reffre religious ceremonies to help the members enter trances. The effect isn't as strong in other species, but it is still somewhat hypnotic I think."

He had grumbled, "I don't speak Russian, but the lyrics sound depressing."

"That is not Russian."

"Well what is it then?"

"It is nothing. The language is created. No one understands it. The singer picks the sounds while watching vids of brain waves from fetal mammals used in lab experiments. She believes they are universal signals of distress. I believe it has more to do with the tone of her voice and the minor chord the piece is performed in. But either way, the nonspecificity is part of the appeal. The musicians make a mood and the listeners fill in the meaning."

"It's different for everyone?"

"They are the same sounds, you interpret them based on your experiences."

"Are you saying that I hear regret because I have regrets?"

"That is the idea, yes."

"That is ridiculous Chekov, you know that right? And it could be dangerous, yes, it is dangerous. Do you realize a normal person, a perfectly happy person could hear that music and start creating all sorts of problems for themselves? They could forget, or maybe not even know that they have people that love them, that are willing, eager to help them. That is a tragedy Chekov. Depression destroys young lives you know."

Chekov, lying rigidly still and clutching a barf bag, had said, "I will take a psych eval if you insist, but could it wait please until I am not so sick?"

"You're fine." McCoy had said. Chekov had moaned in disagreement. McCoy had huffed and said, "let me clarify, physically, right now, you're not so great. But emotionally you're probably the sanest person on the bridge. That's faint praise though so don't let it go to your head."

Pavel had shaken his head dismissively, then grabbed the bag more tightly. McCoy had said, "Don't believe me? Let's see, do you have an overwhelming compulsion to risk your life by turning every day into an impossible, dangerous adventure? No. Are you so emotionally stunted you aren't even comfortable with other people's feelings? No. Do you want to date that? No again. Do you spend most of your free time with plants and knives? You do not. Young man, from where I am sitting, you're looking pretty good."

Eyes closed, Chekov had frowned and said, "I was shot by my shipmate. He was walking in front of me at the time. We were not under attack."

McCoy had chuckled, "Good point, I guess you really do belong working up there."

McCoy had thought a while, considering what Chekov had said about the music. He had not been certain the younger man was still awake when he had asked, "Do they make a happy version?"

Chekov had answered him thoughtfully, "I do not think so, if they do I have never heard it. But, it would be no challenge. Lots of music is happy. Happiness is easy to share. Everyone wishes to be considered happy. It is the ultimate success, us as we wish we were."

"I think that might be a young person's game Chekov. One of the few benefits of age, you don't care what other people think."

"Something to look forward to. I pretend I am what I wish to be all the time. I fool no one, but I try."

"You aren't happy?"

"I am happy, usually. I was thinking more of average, you know, normal."

"For God's sake Chekov, everyone knows you aren't average."

"That is kind of my point doctor."

"Don't sell yourself short son, normal is not a goal. Now, get back to the music, are you are saying you like it because it makes you to feel like someone understands you?"

Chekov had nodded without opening his eyes.

"You should talk to your family Chekov. If you never tell people the things that are important to you they will never get a chance to understand." It was what he wanted to say to Joanna, and his voice had sounded more urgent than he had intended.

Chekov hadn't seemed to notice. He had muttered, "Right now I am sorry I ever spoke of it at all."

McCoy was sympathetic, but there was one more thing he needed to say. "Hey," he had asked, "do you understand what you are describing isn't real? It might feel cathartic, but it isn't. So it is kind of cheating. A real person would care what you say."

Chekov had said seriously, "Some might, but as bad as it is to feel alone it would be worse to discovered no one can cared. The music allows you to feel someone shares your pain. You say the singer sounds regretful, I think lonely, another person might think she is angry. That is why the music works. It allows you to feel understood without ever having to be vulnerable."

"Really? I didn't get that at all. It just sounded sad to me."

"You had to listen again though? And it seemed to be about emotions you remembered feeling? That is what it does for everyone."

McCoy had thought and then had said, "Chekov, you are a kid. You haven't been alive long enough to make any serious mistakes. What unhappiness could you possibly remember?"

"Right now my greatest regret is that I stood behind Lt. Lao."

McCoy had laughed, "Believe it or not son, this isn't nearly as painful as knowing you can't change the past." Chekov opened his eyes at last. If it had been anyone else, McCoy would have called the look he got disdainful.

After a few minutes McCoy had said, "Alright, I can admit I like the music, but I am not sure I approve of it."

He had been half joking but Chekov had answered him seriously. "Don't worry Dr. McCoy, liking the music means you are empathetic and self-aware, not depressed."

McCoy had nodded, impressed. "Wow," he said. "How old are you again?"

"I did not think of that, I read in a review."

Nothing had really changed, but just like that, the whole world had seemed brighter. He had liked the image of Joanna as empathetic, it fit into his hopes for her. He had wanted to thank the young man, but instead he had said, "And to think that in my day, we just liked something we could dance to,"

Chekov had started to laugh, which hadn't been a good idea, as he had ended up coiled around the bag again almost immediately. McCoy had been patting the boy's shoulder and murmuring encouragement when the morning nurse came in. She had looked surprised but hadn't asked any questions. He had apologized to Chapel a little later that morning. Then he had called the galley and had cupcakes sent to all three shifts with his compliments. He hadn't actually apologized to Jim, but they didn't really do that much, and things had been fine.

He had started asking Joanna how she felt about things. It had felt unnatural, and she had looked at him oddly, but he she sometimes answered. It made her comms more interesting. And he was trying to do it too. He wanted to be a good example.

Now that he thought of it as Joanna's, the music made him feel more wistful than melancholy. It played while he watched the series of holos several times, pictures of Joanna through the years. There were baby pictures, and school shots, and images from birthday parties. He liked to see her grinning and surrounded by friends. That was why he had left, so that her life would not be complicated by angry parents that hated each other. Looking at the pictures always made him feel like it might have been worth it. In the latest one she was dressed for a formal dance. Probably the one he had missed, but he didn't let himself think too long about that. She was a true southern girl, had her hair done up and her makeup on. She had stopped being a pretty child, and was becoming a lovely young woman. Only the wide smile looked the same. But that was not surprising, he thought with satisfaction, empathetic people were usually happy.

0445  
He had fallen asleep in the recliner. He wasn't sure what awakened him. The audio and viewer had long since shut off and the lights had dimmed when he stopped moving. He lay still and listened. He didn't hear anything urgent, no yelling or running feet. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had missed something important. McCoy got up, and went out on the floor.

The chrom said it was 0445, gamma shift. The unit lights were low. He could hear excited voices coming from the ward. It was noisier than it should have been. He started that direction.

He entered the patient care area. The isolation unit glowed and hummed in the corner. There were crew members all around it, gathered in groups of two or three. They were talking, and occasionally someone pointed. As he listened there was a collective gasp and several people clapped. McCoy called, "What's all this?" but the only response came from Xetic, one of the gamma shift nurses. He scuttled towards the doctor on his beetle like legs.

"Oh sir," clicked Xetic. "Who was it called you? I wanted to, but Dr. Treos said I should not. I am very glad to see you."

"What's going on here?" McCoy asked.

Miss Sascheja, the shift's head nurse, saw them talking and marched over purposefully. "Doctor McCoy," she said, "You must speak to Dr. Treos. He has established a carnival atmosphere. I have shared my disapproval, he is ignoring my concerns."

Xetic gestured ineffectually and then said, "Dr. Treos is very angry sir. There has been an altercation between Ensign Chekov and the robots."

"Chekov? Are you sure?" McCoy asked.

"And the robots sir." Xetic said.

"Ah Leonard," M'Benga said, coming over to join them, "I am sorry you were disturbed, but I must confess I am glad you are here. Things are getting out of hand, and I think we may need to present a united front to John."

"Xetic says there was an altercation? What's going on Geof?"

"When I rounded I found the ensign to be much worse, despite antipyretics and antibiotics his temperature was 40 degrees. He was short of breath and I had difficulty rousing him. I thought he seemed confused. I called John. I suggested we transfer him to the floor, so that if he needed a stasis unit or other support it would be readily available."

"A stasis unit, what the hell! He was stable when I left today! He has the flu, what in the world is happening down here?" McCoy sputtered.

"John felt that the ensign was simply sleepy from medication ordered by Dr. Patel. He promised to sit up with him. He said he would discuss it with Patel and promised to call me if there was any change. I did not see what happened next, I had gone to bed in the call room, but Mr. Xetic did," M'Benga looked at the nurse.

"Dr. Treos prepared a respiratory stimulant for the ensign, who did not agree that he needed it. He wrapped himself in his blanket and refused to come out. The robots cannot administer hypos through fabric." Xetic said. "Dr. Treos ordered Mr. Chekov to cooperate several times without effect, and then ordered the robots to restrain him if necessary, but to get the shot into him." Xetic paused and then added, "It was not easily accomplished. One of the robots finally held Mr. Chekov down while the other cut through the blanket and his clothing. Mr. Chekov appeared to resent it a great deal."

"Oh, I bet." McCoy said.

"Sometime after Ensign Chekov received the medication Dr. Treos ordered the robots to draw some blood. The ensign not only refused, he used the remnants of the blanket to restrain one of the robots. The two men argued. That is to say Dr. Treos attempted to argue, Ensign Chekov did not respond. Eventually Dr. Treos was able to use one robot to free the other, but the noise had drawn the entire staff. Now they will not leave and the presence of such a swarm is escalating the emotions of those involved. Doctor Treos is very angry and Ensign Chekov has not yet even agreed to have his blood drawn." Xetic looked over at the unit, his exoskeleton did not allow him to have facial expressions, but he waved his claws around in the way McCoy knew meant he was distressed.

M'Benga said, "I have been trying to calm Chekov down Leonard, but I haven't had much success. He's pretty out of it. I assume it's the medications, between sleeping aids, pain meds and stimulants he's got a lot of stuff running around in him right now. And that fever is high. Frankly, I can't believe he is still on his feet. I am concerned when he collapses he will need more help than we can give him in that bubble. The nurses say the two of you have a good relationship, perhaps you should try?"

McCoy nodded and started towards the isolation unit. He had to push through what seemed like the entire staff. A few looked worried, but most looked excited. The mood was indeed carnival like. As he passed Miss Ba and her roommates, his foot slipped, he glanced down and saw he had walked on the no visitor sign.

John Treos was sitting at the controls issuing orders through the comm. He looked tired and very angry. Through the wall of the unit McCoy could see the robots floating on one side of the bed. Chekov, breathing hard, stood on the other. He was facing the desk, but watching the robots. There was blood smeared across fresh bruises on his bare back and chest. The IV was out, and the bag was leaking on the floor.

Treos ordered the robots to return Chekov to bed. They started forward obediently. Chekov waited until they had crossed the center of the bed, then dove underneath it and came up on the other side. There were cheers and several people clapped, Treos looked around angrily.

He snapped, "Either shut up or leave."

"You invited us Dr. Treos," said one of the nurses. "You said we should come and watch a demonstration of the future of medicine."

"Turns out the future of medicine is more entertaining than I thought," laughed another.

"Go Pav," chanted one of the custodians. Someone whooped.

Miss Sascheja called angrily, "That is quite enough!"

As soon as the robots moved Chekov did too, he slid across the floor or under furniture, and never let them get closer than several meters. There wasn't much cover in the room but he used it all. The robots were designed to care for patients in a bed, not to yank them out from under furniture. They weren't programmed to coordinate their movements and Chekov kept making them run into each other. The gamma shift staff laughed and clapped and occasionally called encouragement.

"Knock it off Chekov," McCoy ordered.

Chekov didn't acknowledge him. He kept his eyes on the robots and struggled to catch his breath. He was shaking and occasionally coughing so hard McCoy was surprised he could keep moving.

"I told you not to over medicate him. How much pain medicine did he get?" McCoy asked, slipping into the seat next to Treos.

"I don't know, that was Patel's job. Not enough obviously." Treos said.

"Where is Patel?"

"She signed off to M'Benga. Don't worry I am still in compliance with your restrictions Leonard. I called her, we've agreed on a plan. Everything was fine until your ensign decided it would be hilarious to embarrass me."

"He didn't decide anything Treos. Look at him, he doesn't have any idea what he's doing. We need to calm him down before the robots' automatic programming kicks in and they sedate him."

Treos turned to McCoy and frowning said, "That's actually the idea Leonard. I want them to. As soon as he holds still they are going to put him to sleep for a long time. He is ruining any chance I have of there being positive data on my ease of care delivery section."

McCoy poked at the wall of the unit. "Look Treos," he said. "Do you see that being three meters in front of you? That is not some computer program you can correct, that is a scrawny teenager. You give him any more meds and he might lose his respiratory drive. Even you have to realize that would be bad."

Treos slammed his hands down on the desk. "Would it be Leonard? Then the patient care units could intubate him without him fighting them, literally fighting them, with his fists. I have never seen anything like him. How do you program for uncooperative? He makes me look incompetent. I am sick of him and I am sick of his attitude. If he was unconscious at least he couldn't humiliate me in public." He stood up and added, "I am done with the whole lot of you. Maybe one of you Luddites could call me when he passes out." and stomped off.

McCoy moved to the main seat and peered into the isolation unit. He couldn't see Chekov. He turned to M'Benga. "Is he still there?' he asked.

"He's under the docking station. He's awake, he's just sitting there watching the bots." M'Benga replied.

McCoy leaned into the comm. "Chekov," he said, "that's enough. You're going to make yourself worse. Go back to bed."

"He's not moving," M'Benga said. "Are you sure that thing is working?"

"Come on Pav," the custodian said encouragingly, "listen to Dr. McCoy. Everybody wants you to get better."

M'Benga said. "He blinked, maybe he heard that, he's still not moving."

McCoy made a decision. "Xetic, could you send in a basin of tepid water and a sponge or cloth? Use the replicator, that would probably be easiest." He stood up and turned to M'Benga. "I'm going in there."

"If you go in there you have to stay in there." M'Benga said.

"Don't be absurd."

"Leonard, you can't bring that virus out of there." M'Benga said firmly.

"It isn't even particularly contagious. And I am immunized."

"We have protocols for a reason Leonard."

"For God's sake Geof, look at him, he's miserable. I am not in the habit of leaving the patients to suffer on the floor."

M'Benga shook his head and said, "Believe it or not, none of us are Leonard, but you know the rules, and they exist for a reason."

McCoy thought for a minute, sighed and said, "Fine. I will get in a bio suit."

"That would be a reasonable compromise." M'Benga said.

McCoy looked at the staff, still visiting around the sides of the isolation unit. He picked one of them at random and said, "Rosen, come help me get suited up. The rest of you get back to work. This show is over."

Swathed in virus filtering cloth, he stepped inside the first door of the mobile hospital facility unit. It was warm, and noisier than he would have thought. The unit wheezed as air was forced over filters. The door in front of him unsealed and he stepped forward. It was even hotter and noisier inside the actual bubble. The robots hummed and their joints clicked irregularly. He could still hear the staff's voices from outside, but they echoed oddly and sounded artificial and far away.

He had grabbed a blanket off a bed before he came in. He set it on the table and arranged the basin of water next to it. He picked up strips of what used to be pajamas off the floor and set them by the basin. He scooted the whole thing back, away from the bed and then began to look for Chekov.

He had picked one of the older model suits because they had larger face masks, and he wanted to be recognizable, but it was clunky and made movement difficult. He spotted Chekov huddled under the charging dock and started that direction. It seemed to take a long time to cross the unit.

He leaned over, hoping his face showed. "Hey buddy, it's time for bed," McCoy said, careful to keep some distance, he didn't want to frighten the boy and start him running again. Chekov continued to stare at the robots.

"Pavel," McCoy began but he was interrupted by the mechanical voice of the robot saying, "Bed One, do you require assistance?" Chekov flinched, covered his ears and pushed himself more tightly against the wall. It moved and the unit alarmed, a piercing wail. Chekov jumped forward and the noise stopped. Then the robot then gave three of the beeps it had used earlier in the week. They were very loud, hurting McCoy's ears even through the suit.

"Geof, get into that thing's programing and turn it down. Turn it off if you can. It is unbelievably loud in here."

M'Benga began to page through the controls. "I think it is signaling for assistance. They have both been doing it since Treos left, about every five minutes."

The other robot intoned, "Bed One, do you require assistance?" waited several seconds for a reply and then issued three very loud beeps.

"Oh, and guess what, they aren't synced," said M'Benga.

"Turn them both off. It's damn annoying." He took a step toward Chekov and said gently, "What is it I need to say to get these things to go to the dock, can you tell me?"

"Try saying, Bed One does not require assistance." M'Benga said.

"I was actually hoping to get Ensign Chekov to talk to me.

"Oh, sure, sorry Leonard. Um, there, I was able to turn the volume down."

"Thanks doctor. Did you hear that Pavel? Now they will be quiet. Let's put the robots away. Can you help me?" He took another couple steps toward the ensign, who without taking his eyes from the robots, slid along the floor so that McCoy couldn't reach him.

"Okay, then we'll do this the hard way," McCoy sighed. He stepped in front of the ensign and said, "Bed One does not require assistance, Patient Care Units, return to docking station."

The robots began to float obediently to the station. Chekov staggered up out of their way. McCoy, who had been watching closely, jumped in front of him and wrapped both arms around him. Chekov wiggled desperately for a few seconds, but started coughing and lost his footing and sagged into McCoy's arms. McCoy half dragged, half carried him to the bed.

"You," he snorted, struggling to lift the smaller man into the bed, "are lucky you are not any bigger or I would have to leave you on the floor." He managed to lift him but Chekov refused to lie down. He perched on the edge of the bed and struggled to get away, coughing and wheezing. McCoy kept one arm around the younger man and with the other pulled the table over. As he worked he crooned softly, "It's the drugs, Pavel. You feel this way because of the drugs. You've got to calm down and wait them out. Just sit up and breathe slow. You'll be better soon."

He grabbed the blanket with his free hand and held it out, "Look, look what I brought for you. I know you like to have a blanket over you."

Chekov grabbed the blanket and clutched it against his chest. He stopped squirming but McCoy could feel him shaking through the gloves of his suit. He picked up the mask and asked, "You would feel better if you had a treatment." Chekov slapped it away. "Okay, okay, okay, no treatment. I'm guessing we aren't restarting that IV for a while either. You know what Pavel? You hide them, but got angry depths. I've always liked that about you. Alright son, if you don't want a treatment, then you need to breathe slower." He gave some examples and thought Chekov might have joined in. He kept one hand on the ensign and with the other grabbed at the pile of rags that had once been his clothing.

"I am going to try to cool you off, but I need you not to run. Are you ready? I am not going to hurt you. I want you to feel better. Breathe slow now, in and out." He kept one arm firmly around Chekov and his voice low and soothing. He reached to the basin and dipped a cloth in the water. He rung it out and ran it slowly along the ensign's shoulder. The kid shuddered, but didn't pull away. McCoy pulled the cloth down his arm to the wrist, and started again, crooning as he worked.

It was difficult. Shifting his stance panicked the patient. First his legs got stiff and then his arms cramped from the repetitive motions. The suit was stuffy. He could feel sweat running down his face and back but he couldn't wipe it away. The heat and the constant drone of the unit's power sources gave him a headache. He started talking just to distract himself.

He started with things he thought might interest the ensign. Chekov didn't answer any questions, so he just kept talking. He didn't even really hear himself. He talked about his first meeting with Jim, on the shuttle to the academy. Then he started in on his thoughts on space on general. Eventually he started talking about his childhood on Earth. He talked about fishing with his brother and dad.

He was describing his father's fly pole when suddenly his sleep fogged brain called up an image of the last time he had given someone a sponge bath. It had been in the bathroom of his childhood home. He remembered leaning over the tub, saw his father's back, with the withered muscles and the skin hanging from the bones of his shoulders. He heard the pain filled voice say, "I wouldn't let a dog live like this Len, how can you do me so? If I thought I could lift a gun I'd do it myself son."

He stood with his hand in the basin and looked at the water, remembering. After several seconds, he felt something on his arm. He blinked his eyes and looked down. Chekov was clutching his wrist, he could feel it through the suit.

"What is it son?" he asked.

Chekov whispered in Russian. The translator in the suit supplied, "Don't leave me."

McCoy blinked, swallowed hard, and said, "I will stay until you're better, I promise." He rung out the cloth, and went back to work, speaking slowly about classes he took at the academy.

It was another hour before the ensign finally lay down. He curled up on the bed. He looked up at McCoy and said in Standard, "I'm sorry."

McCoy dropped the rag in the nearly depleted basin and said, "It's not your fault." He pulled the blanket out of Chekov's hands, spread it lightly over him and added, "I think the bed might be a little wet."

"It doesn't matter," Chekov said, "so am I." He closed his eyes and was asleep almost immediately.

McCoy quietly dumped the rags and basin into the recycling. He stood in the entryway while the suit was decontaminated, then slipped out of it and sealed it carefully in the storage sack that would be used to transport it to laundry for a more thorough cleaning.

He checked the monitor. Chekov's temperature was 37.8. He stretched his muscles while he watched the sleeping boy and felt really good. It had been a long time since he had felt so good. He felt so great he didn't even mind when he realized he had forgotten to leave a change of clothes at the door, which meant he would be walking across sick bay in his underwear at shift change.

0655  
Christine stood with Treos at the entrance to the isolation unit and waiting for Leonard. Treos had come in just as Sascheja was telling her the story of the night's adventures. He had insisted on retelling the story from his point of view, which was that Leonard had needlessly interfered and undermined his robots. Sascheja had been so scandalized she could barely speak. She had managed, "we can agree that Ensign Chekov got worse under the care of Dr. Treos, and better under the care of Dr. McCoy. That is all." Christine had been inclined to agree. She had sent Sascheja home to bed and told Treos they needed to see Leonard.

Treos stood with his arms crossed muttering angrily to himself. She tried to appear a dispassionate professional, but couldn't help smiling when he stamped his foot like a child. Inside the unit Leonard disrobed and wrestled the hazard suit into its cleaning kit. He saw them watching, grinned like a cat drowning in cream, and pushed eagerly at the still sealed exit.

Leonard was talking before he got out the door. He gestured behind him and said, "Did you see what happened in there? The kid is sick for four days. Keeps getting sicker; I spend a few hours with him and then he turns the corner. I told you Treos, for humans, touch is essential."

"Apparently even when the hand is wrapped in virus filtering polymers," she said archly. But only to keep herself from congratulating Leonard. She suspected the satisfaction it had given him to best the most advanced robotic medical care available with a sponge bath was even greater than the pleasure he took from correcting Treos. She couldn't help smiling because he looked so triumphant.

"Leonard," Treos said, "I know you think you've proved something important but all you've really done is earn yourself half an hour in a virus filtering shower. You stayed up all night, exposed yourself to a serious illness, and this is still a bad case of the flu. You didn't treat the virus."

Leonard opened his mouth to reply, but as he did the chrom turned to 0700, the start of alpha shift. Both patient care units left their dock to begin the morning assessment of their patient. Chekov's eyes flew open and he moaned, then pulled the blanket over his head.

Leonard pushed past Treos to the comm unit. He grabbed it and said, "Bed One does not require assistance, Patient Care Units, return to docking station. Right now, damn it."

He watched the robots return to base then turned to the staff gathering for report. He pointed at Chekov and yelled, "Anyone, or anything, that wakes him up before noon answers to me. Got it?" From the desk faces looked at him in surprise. Various heads nodded automatically. "Good," he said.

He turned back to Treos and lowered his voice. "I mean it. And do you know why Treos? Because that isn't a bad case of the flu in there, it is a boy. He hurts and is scared and every time he wakes up he's surrounded by machines that shoot him full of drugs. He feels abandoned, and for good reason. But he is no longer your concern. As of right now I am accepting responsibility for his care. I am accepting responsibility for all of their care. You go on back to your studies, I will take care of the crew. I don't treat illnesses, I treat patients. That is how we have done it, and that is how we are going to do it here forever."

"This is outrageous, your orders specifically say," sputtered Treos.

"No, don't talk to me about orders. I know what my responsibilities are. I should never have allowed this. You can put those things on manual control or you can shut them off. Either way they are finished gathering data on this ship. You do it my way or I will take a knife to this thing and have security shove your robots out an airlock.

"Christine, call the lab. Ask them if Chekov's cough is contagious. Make it clear I am not interested in the theoretical. I want an actual, we can live with it answer. As soon as they say he isn't, I am moving him to the floor." He paused, then added, "Now if you excuse me, I will be in my office looking for a uniform."

Leonard went one way, Treos went the other, to the main desk. Worried, Christine followed him. He flung himself into a seat and began to type, muttering angrily to himself. Uncertain what to do, Christine finally patted his shoulder sympathetically and said, "I know you're disappointed, I'm sorry."

"McCoy's the one who's going to be sorry. I have wasted enough time. I am done arguing with that man." Treos said. "I am preparing a communique right now. Starfleet will hear every detail. He can't do this."

Over Treos's head Christine could see Leonard, a slight figure in white, stamping his way to his office as the staff scattered before him. She said, "Oh, I think he did."

1515  
At shift change, Ruth, Maddie and Piers, who were scheduled to work beta, sat with Trina, Lika, and Jonas, who had just finished alpha shift. They were waiting for Miss Chapel so that they could give report. As far as they could tell, she had shut herself away with the Doctors McCoy, Treos, Patel, and M'Benga. They were all in the CMO's office with the door closed.

"Do you think we should wait anymore?" Lika asked. She was eager to get on her way.

"Miss Chapel likes to be here for report, and we need an administrator." Maddie said. She was hoping to convince the manager to give her the shift off, as she was still angry with Piers.

Maybe someone should go knock on the door?" Lika wondered.

"No," everyone else said at once.

Jonas said, "You know that's McCoy's office don't you? You don't interrupt him. I can only imagine what he'd do. They would be able to hear him yelling up on the bridge."

"You have not been here as long as me," said Piers. "I am going to give you some advice. Never interrupt their discussions unless there is a significant problem. Like a very significant problem, your own death, pirates over running the ship maybe, or if somebody's spleen fell out on the floor, something like that. You don't go tell them they are keeping us waiting. They don't care."

They watched the CMO's door. It was windowless, and the door sealed tightly, like all the doors on the Enterprise. It was impossible to tell what was going on inside.

"They are fighting." Trina said.

"What makes you think so?" asked Piers happily. He was considered a gossip.

"When we got report this morning Miss Sascheja was a complete Tellarite. She wouldn't let anyone else talk and gave us the bare minimum. She basically said Miss Ba was stable, and that Ensign Chekov was recovering from some drug interaction issues."

"Oh, not again. Poor kid." Ruth said.

"He better be over it. I am not spending another shift keeping him off the ceiling." Maddie sounded definite.

"He is, but never mind. She said to check him regularly but not to wake him up. I asked why the robots weren't taking care of him and she totally freaked out. She was like, 'Don't second guess me, you have all the necessary information, do as I say,' blah, blah, blah, even worse than usual."

"She was like an authority crazed squirrel." Jonas agreed.

"So," continued Trina. "I followed Xetic out and got the whole story from him. Dr. Patel gave Chekov too much medicine, and then Dr. Treos gave him more, and then Chekov went ape shit and had it out with the robot mano a machino."

"Did he seriously?" Piers said, "Why do I never get to see anything good?"

"Apparently yes, he did. And Xetic panicked and called Dr. M'Benga, the universe's nicest doctor. He came down, gave big smiles all around and patted everyone on the back. He told Dr. Treos to practice empathy and then went back to bed. Which left Dr. Treos free to do whatever he wanted, which was not to practice empathy. Pav refused some request, Dr. Treos lost it, and then Dr. Treos and Pav basically played live action Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots in front of the whole gamma shift. Somebody, and I think we can all agree it was Miss Sascheja, called Dr. McCoy, never the world's nicest doctor, but smart enough to know Dr. Treos is scary. He came in at like 0300 and spent the whole rest of the night talking Pav down. Then McCoy and Treos had it out. Dr. McCoy was in his underwear while they yelled at each other."

"Okay, are you sure? That sounds surreal," said Piers.

"I actually saw that." Jonas said. "I was a little late and was trying to sneak in the back way. I saw him going into his office wearing nothing but his skyboys."

"He wears regulation underwear? Gross no one wears regulation underwear," Ruth said.

"Bet Miss Sascheja does," Piers said. "Do you think Miss Chapel does?"

Jonas said, "No way, she's not like them. She hasn't given up. She bings."

There were groans of protest around the table.

"She is your boss," said Ruth.

"She is like thirty," added Maddie.

"I am not saying I have a chance, I said she bings," Jonas said with a shrug.

"Anyway," Trina said. "Doctor McCoy has been hanging around here all day in like the best mood ever, so you know he's just been killing time, rubbing his hands, waiting to get the medical staff all together so he could scream at everyone at once."

"For crying out loud, I'm a doctor, not all you people's mother, now sit down so I can yell at you and take away your dinner break!" laughed Jonas.

"I'm a doctor, not an idiot, you guys on the other hand I'm not so sure about." said Piers.

"I'm a doctor, not the custodian for the whole unit's screw ups." suggested Ruth.

"I'm a doctor, not the crankiest boss in the universe. Oh wait, no, I'm both." Maddie said. Piers laughed and she felt a little better.

They waited a few more minutes. Ruth sighed and said, "This is ridiculous. Just tell us what we need to know and we will get to work. I will fill her in if they ever coming out."

Trina nodded and said, "We had several short stays, there files are up if anyone bounces back, but I doubt it, two headaches and a bad stomach. Currently, you've only got the one patient. Ba went home early this morning, she said she needed some sleep and she couldn't get any here, which was true, Dr. McCoy was particularly enthusiastic today. Miss Chapel told her to come back tomorrow for a check. Chekov's in the unit, now you have to tell the robots to do everything for him. He's still febrile and coughing. Pretty stable though. Dr. McCoy is waiting on the lab for some cultures, he wants to be notified when they come in, no matter what time."

"Seriously," asked Maddie. "Is Chekov still flying, because I am not taking care of him if he is."

"No, he is not," Trina said. Jonas nodded, backing her up. "He's pretty much just slept or sat there all day. He's hardly talked. I think he's embarrassed."

"Well, he should be. He finally decides to stand up for himself, and it's to a robot. That's embarrassing." Maddie said.

Jonas added, "And he was naked."

Trina said quickly, "We don't know that, Xetic didn't say so, I just said it because I assumed it, or maybe I just," she paused and smiled at her friends.

"Wished it?" asked Piers. "Like to imagine it?"

"Hoped, hoped, hoped, hoped?" asked Ruth.

"Spend all your free time thinking about that anyway?" asked Jonas.

Trina shrugged, "I was going to say, thought it made the story better."

"I like my version, and I notice you don't deny it." Jonas said. Trina giggled guiltily.

"Naked, really?" Piers said. "I never get to see any of the good stuff."

"It's not that good." Maddie said, and picking up her PADD, went to work.

"She is never any fun." Ruth sniffed.

"Just once, I would like to know what she does think is good." Trina said.

2302  
"So," Jim said, "he was stripped down to his skivvies in front of an audience, there was lots of yelling, lots of hypos. Really, all it needed was fish for dinner to have been everything he hates in one bad evening."

"His pajama bottoms, but pretty much." McCoy agreed, pouring himself another glass and topping off the captain's. He knew it should probably be his last, it was fast approaching midnight and he was working in the morning, but he felt like celebrating. "It's like I told the medical staff today at our meeting. Did I tell you we had a great meeting today? We did. Anyway, I told them that people aren't meant to be cared for by machines. I said it at the very first meeting after Treos got on board. I said it at every meeting we had with him, and I said it today. Hopefully people are finally beginning to hear me. Treos is still mad, but I think everyone else is beginning to agree. Patel said she thought it might be better for me to take over the case since I had spent so much time on it. She didn't even seem resentful."

"She's smart Bones, she's not you, but she's okay." Jim said.

McCoy nodded. "At this point, my only regret is that I didn't pull rank on him at the very first mention of the robots. I knew they would be a problem. And I was right. You know kid, I am usually right."

"I appreciate that about you Bones. But I still can't believe you didn't call me. What is the use of me issuing direct orders if you disregard them?"

McCoy started to laugh, but then looked serious and said, "this wasn't like last time Jim, it was more pathetic than funny. He wasn't nearly as hyped up. He was scared, he looked, I don't know, haunted. Seeing it would have just made you mad. You would have probably have punched Treos, and given that I fired him despite my direct orders to cooperate, I am probably already going to be in enough trouble without that."

"Still nothing from headquarters?" asked the captain.

"Not a thing."

"Are you worried? Because I totally have your back on this Bones, I am ready to go to the mats."

"Not really. I don't care. No, that's not true, I do care. It just seems so obvious to me that I did the right thing. I have faith in the brass."

Jim looked a little skeptical. McCoy continued. "And I sent off another report, it ought to bolster my case. I sent all of Jamen's records, with before and after vids, and included Jamen's evaluation of the project. Jamen had some choice comments, I tell you what. I sent pictures of Chekov too, he looks like the bots used him for a punching bag. I talked him into letting the robots take scans of the damage they did and send them to me. He didn't want to, but the irony appealed to him. To be fair, the easy bruising is a side effect of his illness, but Jim, some of them are pretty bad. And no matter what, it is against regulations to hold down members of starfleet and shoot them full of medications they don't want without first getting the permission of the CMO."

"You do that all the time Bones. You do that to me."

"I am the CMO. I always have my permission. Plus, you're a special case, you've got a death wish and it's my responsibility to counteract it. Anyway, I sent copies of the nursing records and I got Sascheja to write out an account of the interactions between Treos and Chekov. You better believe it's detailed."

"Sascheja wrote it? It's detailed."

"It's scathing. I was surprised. Apparently somewhere deep down in her efficient administrator's heart she has been hiding a fondness for that kid. Who would have thought? They seem like polar opposites. Or maybe it's just Treos she dislikes. That I could understand. Anyway, I think what she wrote is pretty damning. I am not too worried. But if it does go bad for me, I still have no regrets. That guy doesn't belong even pretending to practice medicine."

Jim raised his glass in a toast. "To the CMO, who wants to be the only one giving hypos to the unwilling."

"To me," McCoy agreed. The drained their glasses.

McCoy said, "I am waiting for the results of Chekov's sputum specimen, and if it's clear I am moving him to the floor."

"That's a good idea Bones. It sounds gross, but I'm sure it is probably good."

"I was in there for what, two hours. I don't see how he stood it for four days. It's hot, and the light is weird, and you can't really see what is going on outside because of the curve of the walls. And it's never quiet. And those patient care units, the robots? You should hear their voices. The whole thing is like something the Andorians would have come up with to torture political prisoners. I told Treos, I said, as soon as Chekov's cleared I am taking him out of that hell hole and then I am going to let him punch a hole in it."

Remembering Treos' expression made McCoy chuckle. Jim grinned too, then poured another round. He raised his glass once more and said, "Sometimes isn't it was great to be the boss?"


	8. Chapter 8

Monday

0700  
Despite his late night, McCoy arrived in sick bay just as report was starting, in an excellent mood. He joined the staff at shift change and enjoyed every word of Mrs. Sanchez's lengthy report, which could have been summed up by saying Mr. Chekov had an uneventful night. He encouraged her to stay late and show him how to make the honey tea she so recommended for difficulty sleeping. While she stirred, he recounted his argument with Treos. She was very impressed and highly complimentary. He had not realized what a fine judge of character she was.

0900  
Gouyen presented himself for his cardiac evaluation. Mindful of his discussions with Chapel, McCoy forced himself to allow Coh to give it. He contented himself with watching from the door and pacing in the hallway. About half way through the nurse manager left the procedure room and came out in the hall to talk with him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What do you mean? I am delegating authority and letting Coh use his expertise. It makes for greater job satisfaction. Or so I have been told."

"Well you are not doing it very well. You keep peeking in and ruining everyone's concentration. Things are going well. You'll get a verbal report as soon as he's finished. Stop bothering him. Why don't you go to your office and do some paperwork?"

"I'm all caught up."

"Go up to the bridge and bother them."

"We're due to enter a new system sometime today. You know I can't chance being on the bridge when we do. I hate seeing things on the screen. It reminds me how thin the hull is."

"Okay, well, you can't keep on watching us, you are making Coh feel like you don't trust him."

McCoy had nothing to say.

"Leonard," Chapel said with a sigh, "he is perfectly competent. You need to stop this. Have another breakfast. Go visit your pet ensign. Do something."

"My pet ensign?"

Christine nodded in the direction of the isolation unit.

"He's not my pet."

"Well whatever you call him, why don't the two of you sit down and have one of your little chats. It will calm you down and keep you busy for a while."

McCoy frowned. She sighed and said, "If that isn't something you feel an interest in, fine, I was just trying to help. Do whatever you want, but leave us alone. We'll let you know when we finish." She turned back to the room and firmly pushed the button to close the door.

McCoy paced around the unit one more time. The nurses at the desk watched him anxiously. He started over to the isolation unit but then realized it might look as if he were following Chapel's orders, so instead he grabbed a medikit and went off to security to check on Meyers and Goj.

They were sitting with the other miscreants on report. Both were healing well, in good spirits and looking forward to finishing their sentences and getting back to work. While they were on report they weren't supposed to talk, except when responding to superior officers, but no one stopped them from communicating in the sign language the division used while on silent missions. They kept challenging each other to contests, who could hold their breath the longest, who could keep a leg straight in front of themselves longer. As Leonard left they were beginning a push up contest, one armed, because of Meyer's cast.

1330  
McCoy stayed off the unit for most of the morning. After his visit to security he went to engineering. He fussed at the staff there about their failure to put out warning signs when they were working on ladders, and then he checked the supplies in the first aid kits. A little disappointed that they were adequate, he accepted Scotty's invitation to lunch. They ran into Jim in the mess, and he enjoyed his meal despite having to see the number of carbohydrates the captain consumed. Afterwards, he returned to the medical unit. Chapel was working at the desk when he came in.

"Did you see Gouyen?" she asked.

"Gouyen? No, where is he?"

"I thought you might have seen him coming into security as you left."

"What's he doing in security?"

Chapel looked thoughtful and then said, "I have some great news Leonard, Gouyen passed with flying colors. I sent him back to work."

"You were supposed to discuss the results of the study with me."

"The study was normal. He's been off work almost a week and he wanted to go back. You know how those security guys are, work is their life. You weren't here. There was no good reason to keep him off any longer."

"We agreed we would discuss the results."

"Dr. McCoy, do you remember the discussion we had about sharing responsibility? I told Coh to send you a copy of the test, go look through it, I am sure you will concur with my decision."

"Miss Chapel, if I have learned anything this week it is that I am not comfortable supporting decisions I have no part of. I need to be consulted on these things. It is just the way I am."

The nurse nodded. "I am sorry doctor. I will try to remember. Would you like me to call security and have Gouyen come back?"

McCoy thought for a few seconds and then said unwillingly, "No, that won't be necessary. I will go look at the tests. I am sure you're correct. In the future just please remember I will not be supportive of decisions made without my input. I want to be involved."

Chapel nodded. She added. "Again, I am sorry that I didn't consider that. I should probably tell you that I checked the lab reports. Chekov's sputum was clear, so I had him moved to the floor."

"Christine!" McCoy said angrily.

"Leonard, you told me you wanted to move him."

"I did. It's just," he scowled at her.

"It's just what?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said.

She studied him closely and then said, "You wanted to be the one to tell him."

"Don't be ridiculous Chapel. I was just surprised that's all. Surprised and sorry that no one consults with the CMO when making major unit decisions."

She rolled her eyes. "I am sorry doctor, I was simply trying to clear out some space in case we have some actual patients come in, you know like we do every day? The ones that arrive without any warning? That stupid balloon was taking up too much room and it is difficult to clean around. I had it deflated and they are packing it away now. I fully accept the blame for not anticipating that the preparedness of the entire unit is not nearly as important as the CMO getting to pretend he's Santa Claus granting the wishes of all the little children on board. Well doctor, he's on the ward. We put him in his usual bed. Why don't you go see him? You can tell him it was all your idea, I'm sure he will be properly grateful."

McCoy continued to scowl but it didn't have any fire behind it. He said, "I don't need your advice or your permission to talk to the patients Miss Chapel. I shall be in my office if anyone is wondering where I am while they ignore my wishes." He stomped off in that direction.

She said quietly to his back, "And yes, he is too your pet."

1415  
A little later McCoy decided enough time had passed that he could reasonably slip out without it looking like he had been hiding. He stopped in the supply room to use the replicator there and then he went to the ward. Chekov was in the first bed. He was sitting up, staring off into space with a pensive expression.

The overbed table was pushed to the side. There was a covered tray on the table. McCoy lifted the lid. The food was untouched. He looked over at Chekov, who wouldn't meet McCoy's eyes. He looked away, toward the other end of the room. He was still pale, his eyes were red and he had bruises showing at his collar, but he looked better than the last time McCoy had seen him.

McCoy had planned to say a simply hello, but instead he said, "Why aren't you eating?"

Chekov glanced up at the doctor and then away.

"Chekov, I asked you a question. Why didn't you eat your lunch?"

"It tastes like rotting flesh."

"How would you know? Did you eat a lot of rotting flesh over there in Russia?"

Chekov said, "No, and I am not eating it here either."

McCoy laughed and said, "Well when you put it like that, it almost seems reasonable." He set a mug on the table. "Mrs. Sanchez claims you like this stuff. I just made it, it's hot, so be careful."

Chekov didn't pick it up, but he sniffed at it. He said, "thank you Dr. McCoy."

McCoy took a seat. Chekov stared at his own his finger as he traced the insignias on the blanket.

"Chekov," McCoy started.

"Dr. McCoy," Chekov said at the same time.

"You go ahead," McCoy said.

The young man didn't look up. He said quietly, "I, I do not really remember everything clearly, but I know that you helped me, and I want you to know I appreciate it. I appreciate it very much. I," he paused and then said, "I am so embarrassed. I can't believe this happened again. I told Dr. Patel I did not want that medicine."

"Don't let it bother you. These things happen to everyone."

"It is good of you to say, but I know that is not true." It had been a long time since McCoy had heard the navigator sound so down.

McCoy said snapped, "I am a doctor, not an entertainer, and I don't have any interest in saying things just to make you happy." He did though, and he was pleased when Chekov smiled weakly. McCoy continued a little more kindly, "Son, everyone on this ship has done something stupid in front of other people at one time or another. Embarrassing doesn't kill anyone."

"Believe me, I know," Chekov said.

One of the lights on the monitor blinked and changed colors. McCoy glanced up and frowned. "Your fever is up again. You need some fluids, are you going to drink the tea or do you want something else?"

"This is fine." He took a sip and then said, "I used to drink it only to make Mrs. Sanchez happy, but I have had it so many times I have come to like it. She thinks most problems can be cured with tea." He sounded like he disagreed.

"I tried some this morning. She puts a lot of honey in it. It reminds me of my mama's sweet tea. That's served cold though. I don't know if you would like it."

"Very cold or very hot is best when you do not feel well." The boy paused and then said, "When I was sick my mother used to cut up very small pieces of fruit and freeze them, she would tease me to eat them. She would say, 'eat ten and I will tell you a story, eat twenty and I will tell you a long story'."

"She sounds like a clever woman."

Chekov shrugged and said wistfully, "she knew a great deal about illness."

McCoy noticed the ensign used a past tense, and it occurred to him that he was not the only one who avoided discussing his earlier life. He looked at Chekov for a moment and then said, "When my daughter was little and had a fever I used to mix warm water into Jell-O powder and feed it to her. It's a southern thing, my mama did it for me too. If I had told any of my professors, they would have been horrified, but it worked great. She had quite a sweet tooth, she would always drink it."

"You have a daughter?"

"Just the one, her mother and I are divorced. She's just a little younger than you actually."

"Really? How old are you?"

"I started young." McCoy snapped. He rubbed his chin and then said in a quieter voice, "I was still in college when she was born. We got married, I worked full time and went to school full time, the baby cried a lot, my wife was resentful, and then I started medical school and it really got hard." He paused and then added, "I always meant to tell you that I know a little something about taking on adult responsibilities while you're still young."

Chekov said, "The situations are different. I decided to do this Dr. McCoy, I wanted to. I am happy to be on the Enterprise."

"That's probably why you drive me so crazy."

Chekov looked at him thoughtfully, and then said, "she is lucky."

"Why would you say that?"

"She has a kind father."

"I'm not sure she would agree with you. I don't see her nearly as often as I would like. Sometimes I am not sure how much I know her."

"She knows that you love her."

McCoy had to smile, "You sound pretty certain considering you didn't know she existed five minutes ago."

"How could she not? Dr. McCoy, you do not hide your emotions very well."

McCoy laughed, Chekov looked pleased and added, "sometimes I think perhaps you are the anti-Mr. Spock."

"You know young man," laughed McCoy. "I've seldom had a compliment that pleased me more."

Chekov studied McCoy's face for a moment and then reached out to tap his arm. When the older man looked at him he said, "She knows."

"I hope so," McCoy said, "I hope it very much."

They sat in silence for a while. Chekov sighed and closed his eyes. McCoy wanted to gently remind him how important it was to stay hydrated. He barked, "Drink that tea before you fall asleep."

Chekov's eyes snapped open. He sat up straighter and grabbing the tea, drained it. The effort seemed to exhaust him. He barely got the cup on the table before he sagged back on the bed.

"Take it easy kid, did you do that just because I told you to?" McCoy asked.

The ensign gave him an exasperated look, "Yes sir, that is how Starfleet works. Senior officers issue orders, junior officers follow them."

McCoy took a deep breath, "I am not really the military type ensign, I often forget that what I say can be so powerful, which is a good introduction to the first of several things I need to speak to you about." Chekov looked at him warily. McCoy took another deep breath and continued. "Sometimes I forget to think about how much my decisions affect other people. When I got mad enough at Dr. Treos, I shut him down, which means that I could have done it earlier. I didn't in part because I wanted everyone to see him fail. I wanted to be right. More specifically, I wanted my coworkers to see that I was right. That was a mistake. For me the isolation unit was a minor inconvenience, I didn't consider strongly enough that for you it was much more than that. I hope that you will accept my apology."

"You do not have to apologize."

"I do. I lost my temper and thought more about the opinions of my peers than I did about the needs of the individuals the unit exists to serve."

Chekov said, "No, you helped me, as you always do." He played with the blanket some more and then said, "Dr. McCoy, I, I, I know I made this all worse. If I had done what Dr. Treos wanted maybe I wouldn't have been so sick." His voice petered off. He pulled at the blanket and then added, "I blame no one but myself."

"Yourself? I don't see that," said McCoy. The ensign continued to play with the blanket. McCoy watched a while and then said gently, "I can't understand until you tell me."

Chekov sighed and looked up. He said, "I was never like other children. I have been studied a great deal."

McCoy was so surprised he couldn't think of anything to say.

Chekov continued, "I thought I would never have to do that any more."

"Pavel," McCoy said. "You should have said something."

Chekov shook his head. "I said no. It didn't matter." He paused and then added, "I hoped if I refused to cooperate Dr. Treos would want someone better for his study and let me go. He didn't."

"No, he didn't, and I didn't make him. I should have. What you're saying only makes it clearer how much I failed in my responsibilities. I hope that you will accept my apology."

"If it matters to you, then of course, I accept your apology, but I would never blame you for any of this."

"Well it certainly wasn't your fault. I have an idea, how about we both blame Treos?"

Chekov gave him a real smile but shook his head. "He can't help himself. And really, when I think how many more people I could have humiliated myself in front of, I am almost glad I was locked away."

McCoy smiled. "You can't stay mad, and I can't not be mad. We are both kind of pathetic, you know that right?" Chekov nodded wearily. McCoy continued, "What do you mean Treos can't help himself?"

"Doctor Treos thinks of no one as his peer and so he thinks of no one as important. He cared that I did not do as he wanted, but he did not care that I was unhappy. How I felt did not affect his research. He could have made his life easier except for his bias. The nurses are lieutenants, any of them could have ordered me to do what he wanted. I kept waiting for him to involve them, but he never did. I believe as they played no part in his research they were of no interest to him."

"You know Chekov, I have been trying to figure out a succinct way to say what it is about him that bugs me, I believe you hit the nail on the head."

"I had a great deal of time to observe him."

"I suppose you did. He took it to an extreme, but I guess we can all be like that, get caught up in what is important to us.

"You are nothing like that Dr. McCoy. To you people are important simply because they are."

"I, wow, you're full of compliments today."

The young man shrugged. "I have had time to observe you too, I wish I did not have to spend so much time here, but if I must, I am grateful for you."

McCoy had to swallow hard before he could say, "Thank you Pavel, that was very kind. I appreciate that." He blinked his eyes and looked around the room. Then he said, "If it is alright, I think I am just going to sit here a little while, you go on and get some sleep." Chekov obediently shut his eyes, which made McCoy laugh again, he tried to do it quietly.

McCoy enjoyed the quiet and thought that someday, perhaps, he would introduce Chekov to Joanna. They had a lot in common; they were both good, smart people. They might enjoy talking.

The door to the ward opened. Chapel looked in. She frowned when she saw McCoy and said, "There you are! I should have known. I thought you were in your office, I have been calling there. Four ensigns playing in the labs exploded something, burns and minor puncture wounds, they're getting cleaned up but we need you to take a look at them."

McCoy jumped up. As he hurried past he said to Chekov, "We aren't finished, when I come back I am going to have a few things to say to you about unprotected sex, incomplete and misleading medical records, withholding information from health care providers, and then we're going to discuss your unwillingness to cooperate with my recommendations about eating."

He pushed past Chapel and towards the exam area.

Chekov looked at Miss Chapel and said, "lucky me."

"My advice is to stay asleep," she said. "Maybe he'll forget, or somebody else will get sick and distract him. It's been a while; the captain is due for a stay."

They could hear the doctor's raised voice in the passageway. Not all the words were audible, but 'idiotic' and 'time wasting' were clear enough.

Chekov looked up at the nurse. He sighed. Christine cocked her head and said, "I'm guessing right about now you are missing your robots."

"Not the air squids," Chekov replied, "but their volume control, yes."

1840  
It was beta shift, but Leonard was still on the ward. He had finished patient care and stayed to yell at Chekov. He had left the door open and Christine could see him pacing in front of the bed. She couldn't make out everything he said, but she had heard parts of the lecture many times before and occasionally, when his passion got away from him he would shout phrases, or words. She could follow along fairly well. Chekov was no longer even trying to calm him down, but sat silent and still, an embarrassed smile on his face. Occasionally he glanced longingly at Christine.

She pretended not to see him but murmured to herself, "Don't look to me, baby. I can't help you. At this point, no one can. Running wouldn't even help. He would only find you and start over."

"Hey Chapel, what's up?"

"Hello Captain Kirk," she said dryly. He must have snuck in while she was watching the CMO. He draped himself across the desk, looking completely at ease, just like he always did. He really did not seem to remember her at all. She was not sure if that made her glad or sad. As there was no one else at the desk she had no choice but to speak with him.

He gestured toward the ward and asked, "Is that Bones?"

She replied, "Do you really need to ask? Two nights ago, he was celebrating the magic healing powers of touch. Today he is exploring bullying the patients into health."

The captain grinned and asked, "What's he yelling about now?"

"Well, we transferred Mr. Chekov to the unit, and almost immediately his fever went up. I believe Leonard went in there to remind him that he needs to try and drink more fluids, but apparently, something in the ensign's response led Leonard to begin to discuss the importance of participation-"

"In your own health care!" the captain finished for her with one of his marvelous grins. "Topic one in the Bones McCoy Guide to Mind Numbing Lectures for the Trapped Audience. I've heard it many times."

Despite herself Christine smiled. "Yes, well, somehow that led him to reflect on another favorite; I imagine you've heard it too. It begins 'If you think you are old enough to have sex then by God you are old enough to protect yourself from disease.' He is now well into his second fifteen minutes on what condoms are for."

"A classic! I've heard it many times. How's my navigator enjoying it?"

"Not much. He's tried all the standard deflection measures, blushing, stammering, sighing loudly and gazing hopefully at the door. Leonard will not be deterred."

"That cute kid stuff isn't going to have any effect on a professional grouch like Bones. If Chekov wants him to shut up he's going to have to call out the big guns. It's either puke, cry, or nothing. At this point fainting wouldn't even help, the good doctor would just continue to lecture his still body."

From the ward Leonard bellowed, "Do you want to ruin your life?" Then his voice dropped to its regular level and the rant continued.

"I would think he would feel a little hypocritical saying something like that. Everybody knows he knocked up his high school girlfriend, the Ice Queen of Atlanta. His kid's a teenager already. He can't have been that much older than Chekov when he got busy," the captain mused.

Christine looked around the desk to make sure they weren't overheard. She whispered, "Everyone does not know that Captain Kirk, and you should keep your voice down. Did you ever think that perhaps that is why he feels so strongly on this particular topic?"

"You're probably right, but really, don't you think saying it ruined your life is a little much? I mean, he's crazy about that kid."

"He doesn't regret Joanna, but I am sure he has some regrets about her home life. We all have regrets." She gave him a meaningful look. He gazed back innocently, blue eyes completely unclouded by guilt. She sighed and continued, "It doesn't mean we don't go on and make a very satisfactory, healthy life, full of friends and many, many meaningful relationships."

"Okay, sure whatever," the captain said disinterestedly, peering back to the ward. "Look at Chekov, I call that his polite face, when he smiles like that it means he thinks you are an idiot. Sometimes during department meetings, I think his face is going to freeze in that expression. Hey, did you hear that? Did Bones just say Chekov and I don't reflect well on his skills? Ouch. How did I get dragged into this? Better be careful Bones, keep talking and you may completely alienate our little super genius. Then who are you going to spew your philosophical warbling to? He's pretty much the only one left that actually listens."

Christine tried to keep from laughing by returned her full attention to the bay's message board. The captain continued to watch the lecture, occasionally commenting, either on doctor's words or Chekov's lack of response. She saw something marked 'important' from the surgeon general's office. Curious, she opened and read it.

"Oh no," she said.

"What's up?" asked the captain.

"The response to Leonard's original query about Treos is here. It wasn't marked urgent so it got sent to the unit's message board instead of his. It's been here for days."

"Is it bad?" Kirk asked, sitting up, suddenly completely interested.

"No, it gives him complete discretion to handle the matter and reiterates that the safety of the crew is always the primary responsibility of the CMO, the surgeon general exists to support him in that mission, blah blah, signed Admiral Kytel Oogten."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" asked the captain happily, flashing another wonderful grin. "That is great news."

Christine shook her head, "It means he's not in any trouble for shutting down Treos's research, but do you have any idea how completely insufferable he will be once he reads this? I mean, look at him, right now he's convinced his career is on the line and he still can't contain himself. Now that HQ has essentially backed up everything he said there will be no living with him. You can go ahead and be happy, you won't have to work with him."

The captain laughed and reaching out, patted her hand. "If anyone can keep him in line it's you Chris."

"I give up." she said. The captain looked at her quizzically. She continued, "I have been trying to get him to stop micromanaging, and take a broader view. I want him to stop inserting himself into every single patient's experience and to take care of himself a little bit. But this means it's a lost cause. I give up."

"Oh, he wouldn't be the Bones we all know and love if he changed. Everybody gets his very best every time. That's part of his charm." Kirk said.

"Again, you don't work down here, it may be charming for you, it is exhausting for us. He works himself into a frenzy and then calms himself down by exploding like some skinny volcano."

"So, don't listen. I never do."

She looked at the ward again, and said thoughtfully, "I need to develop a polite face."

"Great idea. Ask Chekov for help, he's certainly got it down." the captain returned to watching the lecture.

The doors to the unit opened and the three new graduates appeared. They were working all the shifts on this, their last week of orientation. Next week they would be regular members of the crew and assigned as needed. Christine was looking forward to it. Their skills were fine, but they were too enthusiastic. She thought they would be easier to tolerate as individuals, and not in a group.

"Hello Captain Kirk," purred Lieutenant Aya. Her friends smiled coquettishly at the captain. Christine made a mental note to schedule them to work when the unit was unlikely to have visitors.

"Ladies," said the captain, flashing some teeth.

McCoy's voice rose, and he yelled, "more water, less sex, that's your new goal Chekov."

The captain started to laugh, the three young women to blush. McCoy heard the captain and turning towards the desk said, "Shut up. This is mostly your fault Kirk. He follows your bad example." He started towards the desk angrily. All three of the young women left, almost sprinting away. The captain laughed harder.

"Report in twenty minutes!" Christine called after them.

"Get out." Leonard said.

"Why?" laughed the captain.

"If these are my last days on the ship I am running it my way. I have been far too accommodating with all of you. I don't need you and your poor attitude messing up my teaching. Go to the bridge."

"I came down here to visit my navigator. I am the captain. You can't order me to leave." The captain looked into the ward, Chekov had his eyes closed and his arms over his chest, feigning sleep.

"The hell I can't. Leave." said McCoy.

"I see what you mean." The captain said to Christine. She nodded an acknowledgement. "Fine Bones, tell Chekov I'll see him later. I have a present for him." He slid off his seat and left the unit, still laughing. Christine watched him go and then turned to Leonard.

"That felt good," he said. "Bad news Christine, I have reached a conclusion. I am just not the supportive co worker type."

Her lips twitched but all she said was, "I forwarded some messages to you. You may want to read them tonight."

"Thanks, anything else?"

The comm beeped and Scotty's voice came over it. "Medical, are you there, it's Scott in engineering."

She leaned over and said, "Go ahead Mr. Scott."

"Lieutenant Thomas walked straight into a beam. I don't know how he did it. It's large as life and it's not like it hasn't been there as long as he has. We're putting pressure on it, but he's spouting like a geyser and not making all that much sense. Do you want to send a stretcher, or shall we just walk him up?"

"Stretcher," McCoy said, "and don't bother the medics, I will go myself." he leaned into the comm, "I will be right down Scotty, don't move him." He started to the supply room, calling for an aid and transport.

"Of course you will." Christine said to herself. She watched him hurry off, the stretcher team barely managing to keep up. "Nice to have you back boss," she said.


End file.
